Escapeing Paradine
by Mara-Babi
Summary: Somia and her twin sister Leah find them selves at the very place they've been running from for 2oo years,upon their arrival comes revenge, love, tragedy, action and more.
1. Chapter 1

Escaping Paradine by Krysten Masters

**Escaping Paradine by Krysten Masters**

Chapter one captured

The wind blew ice chills through my hair, as I ran my pack to break through the thick pine forest. There we stood before the colossal walls of the city we'd been seeking for so long now. Victorain. "There's no gate, no door, not even a hole in the wall how do you expect us to get through to the other side Somia?" Anthny was giving me a headache, and I knew he was getting on Leah's nerves to. I looked up at the blond boy standing tall, with his pale hand touching the gray stone of the wall. "Don't question her." Leah said trying to keep her voice down. I turned to look at Leah she was no taller than me and looked virtually the same, isn't that what twins are to look like though? "I'll question who I want!" Anthny snorted at her, and Leah gritted her teeth. "Watch what you say" she warned him her voice growing in volume. Anthny made a strange yet silly face at her sticking his tongue out of his thin but perfect lips. Leah's stone fist slammed into Anthny's lower square like jaw, with an echoing boom of thunder. Not a second later Anthny was soaring into the thick pine, and crashing into a large tree. Needles shook down in rhythmic patterns, fluttering helplessly to the ground.

Anthny's eyes squinted in pain, as he threw him self up on to his feet then dashing back into the woods like a dog with its tail between its legs. "Got rid of him" Leah scoffed in the trees direction, I turned away to stare at the gray solid mass in front of me. How where we going to get into the city undetected, and get out? "Why did we come back after running away so many years ago?" Leah's questioning voice startled me. "We need to get a few things then we can be on our way." I answered smoothly. "Well let's open the gate then-." "NO!" I cut her off short, as I looked up at her shocked pale face. "Why" "we need a plan, and a good one at that" she understood my reason before I even finished my sentence.

The ground shook beneath our feet, and the wall before me vanished revealing a large mahogany gate. I stepped back disbelief filled Leah's face as she skipped back about ten feet. The gate was beautiful though it was carved with great battles and gruesome loss; I stared in awe for a breathless moment. I had a Very quick mood swing as I _growled_ at Leah. She heard the rumbling building inside my chest and answered back quickly. "I didn't open it, Honest" she put her hands up in the air palms facing me. If she didn't the who did? My train of though was cut short as the large gate cracked and the hinges groaned as the gate began to open. I stepped back about three more feet, as the light from in side the city began to blind me. A priest and two guards stepped cautiously out of the city towards us. "Welcome" the priests booming voice was unsure and careful as if not to offend us. "We-"he took another unsure step forward, "- have been sent to greet you" his voice was becoming hoarse and his body seemed to tremble. "What-." Leah took one carefully measured step towards the priest and he stumbled back a foot or two. "-is it that you want", the priest was about to step back another step. I made a quick decision; I took one deep lung filling breath and sighed an "ok".

We followed the priest into the blinding city lights, and appeared on a cobble stone street in front of the white fairy tale castle. "Umm err-, the king would like to speak with you" he said though still cautious but a little relived to be inside the city. He turned gesturing toward the castle, and we followed soundless. The cobble stones clunked beneath our feet, as we reached the three flights of stairs we were about to climb. Leah groaned in displeasure, she would much rather run up the steps and leave the three almost noble looking men behind. She straightened up and composed a confident face to hide her worry and annoyance. As we reached the top of the stone stairs the three men sighed with exhaustion, and continued on only to stop a few feet at the grand golden door with king Paradine the 1st face engraved into the shiny sleek surface. The two sliver suited guards stood on either side of the golden door and opened it with a gentleman's bow. The priest cleared his throat and continued on dragging his long black robe form the stone to the blood red carpet.

The room was different than I remembered it in many than just one way. Leah leaned over her shoulder and whispered words to fast for human ears to catch. "Obsessed much?" she noted looking around the room at every painting and work of art. I saw what she meant instantly, as I looked every witch way there were paintings and sculptures with my face as the inspiration. The tiled covered floor was a mosaic of a beautiful moon light night and then I plopped right in the center of it. I shudder back in distaste to the memory I was about to recall.

I can remember everything from the blue of the sky to the chill in the air, everything became that day._ All hale king Paradine the 2__nd_The royal announcer called from his high hidden balcony. Paradine an odd beauty stepped forward, his brown curly shoulder length hair flowing majestically. _Ahh Somia Hendrige, what gratefulness I have that you accepted your invitation to see me. _He was always so formal but for the first time I sensed a weakness in his voice an undecided note, that I couldn't put my finger on. _Do you know why I've called you her? No.___of course I didn't know has the one who had invited me to his fairytale castle. _Then we will get to the objective my dear, I have chosen you as my-." _Please don't tell me has going to make me his- "_bride"_. No! The word echoed inside my head, what I feared most out of all the things up to that time. To be married to this selfish prideful and materialistic prick, was beyond me. _Ohh she's speechless, what joy"_ wrong I was the exact opposite of speechless; I wanted to scream the word no in his face and run. But I stood there frozen in fear how could I let something so easily delta with bolt my feet to the floor?_ It's a no you scum bag!_ I heard a familiar voice call and I knew at once who had come to save me, who had come to speak the words I couldn't manage to even choke out. I turned tears streaming down my face, and there Leah charged toward Paradine leaping high into the air. Guards began to run to Paradine who stumbled a few feet back. Now he was the one frozen in fear, as Leah rocketed down her fist ready to indent his face. Just as the second her fist should have hit his strained expression, and meddle shield thrown from some mystery person at some mystery place soon had the indention of Leah's fist.

She skipped back very light on her feet, and the mystery person reveled herself for her mystery hiding spot. _Thank you Mary-Angela, you come in handy once in a while._ The young woman bowed alliance as her beautiful golden hair flowed like feathers, fluttering down to the ground. In that instant it was very clear she was one of us, but only not on our side. I shudder knowing that a pureblood must have done this, even though she was beautiful and fast she had no talent. Her eyes were a dull gray, the color from feeding on human blood instead of the new lowed animal blood we vampires were suppose to drink. About a year ago now the feast or drinking of human blood was strictly forbidden in the city of Victorian, king Paradine must have been privately feeding her. There's always a reason for everything and this time the reason was that pure bloods could survive on animal blood and others like Mary-Angela her second class could not.

_Do you accept my proposal, Somia? _His words were like knifes tearing all my thoughts in two. If I were to say yes Leah and I could stay in Victorian, but if I answered no he would surely try to kill us and when that failed he would banish us never to return to the one city we could call home._ Somia, do you accept? _ His alluring voice startled me out of my train of thought. _I -._ I took a quick pause._ Am afraid that my answer is a No my king._ Anger formed hard ceases into his tan skin. I knew that we would have to leave and start completely over in another place far from here, but to go through with this madness I wouldn't stand for it._ Priest Giffor. _He called, his voice rising in volume. _Yes? Escort these havoc causing twins to the gate for there -._he seemed to struggle with the last part of the sentence, his mouth twisting around the words._ There um-banishment._ He finally choked out in sorrow and anger, we hurt his hole being but most of all his pride. We were escorted to the gate in chains rapped around our ankles and wrists, even though they did nothing, Paradine was only gesturing the "_unwelcomeness"_ we now had in the city. People gasped and pointed some even outraged yelling in protest. They were all upset that the twins were benign banished. Once we reached the center of the city the gate opened creaking and groaning as if to protest in its own way. The announcer cleared his throat and began his loyal speech to the king._ Somia and Leah Hendrige are here by charged with torsion and harmful relations to his majesty the king Paradine. _As soon as his voice cut off I gave Leah one quick glance, and then we broke out of our thick chain raps. The crowd instead of gasping and running applauded us, and then all we could think to do was run straight into the gate and out into the world.

"Ahem!" the priest cleared his throat taking me out of my flash back. "The king will see you now" he said in a low voice. We walked abruptly forward and Leah leaned over her shoulder. "I know "I whispered before she could even ask. When we got inside the next room a different announcer from the last I remembered announced our entrance. "Somia and Leah Hendrige" he howled. "No lady?" Leah snorted sarcastically, " ohm your banished once for a lifetime and then they don't even call you lady when they open the gate and say hey twins welcome back, but were not going to call you lady!" her tone rose a little in volume as the sarcastic words dripped from her perfect lips.

This room was different from the other in many ways, for one there was only one painting of me on the dome calling. As beautiful as the artist had made it I still shudder away trying not to recall that flash back again. The large exquisite room was long and wide, with a blood red carpet with gold trimming that stretched all the way to the other side from the door I stood to the oversized thrown. There was no wood or cement on the floor, but tile tan and back brown marble like tiles about two foot each way.

I was taken away from the breathtaking site by the announcers startling cry "all hale king Paradine the 3rd" Leah's expression became startled. She looked over dazed and confused, I spoke quickly to not attract attention to us but no matter how quickly I said the words all eyes were still on us. "Paradine died 200 years ago". At first she looked wary like she had no clue what I meant, then she mapped it out in her head and nodded twice. "That's right it's been 200 years since we've been here"

Even though I've always known how long it's been it still shocked me when she said it aloud. Paradise's brightly polished shoes tapped across the floor, as her strode toward his enormous thrown. The priest tapped my shoulder and waved us onward toward the thrown. I swallowed hard and took slow short strides toward Paradine. The closer we got the more his expression came into view until I saw that it was a wide ear to ear goofy smile. I wasn't relived or compelled to go further, I was actually a little scared at the image of a Paradine descendant smiling such a goofy smile.

Paradine arose from his feet and picked me up giving me a giant bear hug with one clumsy movement of his shiny shoes. "Cold as stone" his smile seemed to get wider if that was possible. "Just the way great great grand Paradine said, and so beautiful who would have thought these paintings were of a real person?" his joy and glee was too much, he was giving me and headache. "So you have come back to marry into the royal family hmmm?" his voice was so gentle that I almost answered with a yes. "yy- uhh er-no" I stumbled the words out, and a frown pulled his young skin into creases along his brow. "no?" he questioned as if to make sure I had the words correct. "No" I relied once more. He turned his ear to ear smile into a tight line, and then finally letting his lips fall to a frown. "Put them in room B15, please" his voice was no longer the gentle breeze it once was, but an angry growling plead.

Guards discarded the hospitality, and grabbed us by the arms pulling us through a series of doors and passage ways until we stopped at a room. The door took about 5 minutes to unlock due to about 20 different locks bolted to the mettle door. Once inside we could tell it was no dungeon, or chamber but and exquisite expensive looking room.

The room was covered with white carpet, and there was a canopy bed at the far wall with gold comfier. There were no windows just lots of paintings of animals and sunsets. Leah stepped inside the room suddenly relaxed. She turned sliding her foot in a loop and invited me in to join her, like she had been living in this room her whole life. Suddenly memory burst into play, I realized that the reason she was so inviting and so comfortable in this room was because it looked and felt just like the room we shared in the small little house on the cobble stone road by the shimmering Crystal Lake that we got kicked out of 200 years ago.

I stepped in with a bit of hurry in the way I made my foot hop, but only because I was so anxious to see the closet. To run over and find out if our clothes were here as well. To open all the jewelry boxes and all the chests to see whets inside. Before I could rush to the closet I caught Leah out of the corner of my eye opening the large chest at the end of the bed. I halted to a stop and peered around her body to get a better look. The chest had our names engraved in the golden wood, the chest our father had made before he died. The light bounced of the top as Leah creaked it open, and pulled out a small fuzzy object. I didn't get a good look but I already knew what she was hugging, her rag doll all withered and torn. It had changed so much, its appearance was no longer new and fresh as it had once been but old torn withered and faded. It didn't seem to matter to Leah; she hugged it tightly for a long moment. As I watched her reunion with the doll our mother had made her I wondered where the doll she had made me is. I ran to the chest and flipped the top open carelessly, as I searched for her. Nothing. I slammed the chest shut and hurried to a white chest short and small sitting right next to a white vanity. I banged open the lid and prepared inside. Nothing. I was getting angry now where could she be, there are only so many places in this room the could be hid. I sat there in my train of thought, where did they put her? The I jumped up realizing its not where they put her but where I put her. I rushed to the closet, making it there in a mere second. I opened both doors carefully so I did not break them, inside on the top shelf was and ancient looking mahogany box. I lifted it tenderly and pulled it closer to me, felling the engraved words my father had put there. Somia. I read to myself, before gently sliding it open. I reached inside with one unsteady hand and pulled out my old white bear.

She was dirty and missing one black button eye, her leg torn and fur noted but it didn't matter to me. I hugged her tightly smelling m mom's old perfume, and remembering the day shed given it to me. Id sat still for at least thirty long seconds, before Leah was at my side hugging me intently. "I miss them "she cried into my shoulder. "so do I...so do I" I repeated the words slowly until I could say them no more.

The night had been long and we were restless. Leah was pacing oddly around the room, as I sat and pondered beside the golden chest at the bedside. "We need to get out of Victorian" I finally choked out as I toyed with my bear. Leah stopped and fell clumsily to the floor making a loud thud as her stone body collided with the floor. "I know, but how" she baled up one fist and rested her head on it. "What about the walls threes got to be a way over them" her voice was serious now. "There is" I answered back remembering what dad had told me on an occasion, just in case we might need to run away from things. But I never thought we'd have to use it. "how, how are we going to get out of this terrible city?" her voice rose with a sudden fright." Threes nothing to be worried about" I reassured her. "I'm not worried" she tried to make her voice sound secure but cracked under the pressure. We both sat there on the white canopy bed staring intently at each other intently; until one of us gave in. we both did, at the same exact second, down to the smallest fraction. "Okay let's think, how are we going to get out of this room and out of the castle?" Her voice was shaking off the worry and becoming straight forward. "First all the locks no problem, second the guards will leave off duty in about ten minutes" she was thinking one step ahead swell as one step behind. "But then another set of guards will be on duty" she tried to correct me but I quickly answered back. "No till take five minutes for them to alert the new guards and another five for them to get here" she looked at me, no doubt the wheels turning in her head. "Yes I see". I processed the moment for a second and began my master plan, "okay so in ten minutes we break down the door, but don't let it hit the floor till make too much noise. Second run down the hall and jump through the stained glass windows, with as little sound as possible." She nodded as I spoke each step intently focusing. "third the sun is out so people will be walking around everywhere, as soon as you hit the ground run to the nearest manhole or sewer" to be completely honest, I had only made it to step three but I kept going in hopes of babbling out some idea I had just thought of. "Fourth in the sewers follow my every direction and step, there may be guards waiting for us to escape down there so be stealthy" her lips twisted up in to a crooked smile as soon as I used the word. "And fifthly?" she asked curious, "I have to admit that I haven't made it that far into the plan quite yet" I blushed, a deep red staining my cheeks. "Okay when we get to the wall entrance we'll figure it out there" she suggested mildly mocking my unusual slowness. "Yes" we waited in silence, my mind counting the seconds. One...two...three...four...five..., I reached twenty seven before speaking. "Its time" I said a quick rush of relief came to Leah's face.

Leah hit the metallic door with one fist, as if she were knocking, as it fell clumsily I caught it buy its door knob. Leah rushed out so that she could hold the door for me as I walked through the cracked archway. We pushed the door back into place repairing the hinges with a twist of our hands. I stood up right straighten but back, as Leah fixed the last twisted hinge. We didn't have time to look for mistakes in our handy work; we just quietly and quickly bolted down the red carpeted hall and sprang covering our faces to protect ourselves from the impact of the glass. The second before my stone hands collided with the colored crystal, I realized that it was a stained glass portrait made of me. His up session gave me a sudden burst of anger that I used to propel myself higher into the air, all at once the air rushed pass me. We slowly flipped our arms wingspan spread, to me we were moving so slow but I knew we must be heading to the ground at a million miles an hour.

We hit the ground with a booming thud, like stone colliding with marble. Then we flew forward to the nearest manhole, opening it with one swift movement then sliding in with another. As soon as we landed in the soiled liquid Leah gave a quit gasp of disgust. I covered my nose and spoke "we need to keep moving not time for a break" I said sourly sounding stuffed and funny as I talked with my nose plugged. Leah only nodded once and we began our run for freedom right was we had stopped it.

We traveled in the polluted waters, running endlessly through dark tunnels only to find more intersections. "This sewer is like a maze!" Leah complained "and we've only been going straight, why not turn". I knew she was tired of the dark and stenchy tunnels that flew past us. "No if we turn we'll only lose our place" I knew where we were going and that fact seemed to give an edge to my voice. "Well if u know so well of where we are why don't you tell me how much longer I have to run?" she was sarcastic now; "for about five more seconds then you'll run into a wall" I joked back. "Haha" she announced with more sarcasm in her voice if that was at all possible. I knew her feeling of restlessness to get to that door of opportunity, that one door out of thousands in the city that would open us to the outside world. "Thirty seconds" I gave her my real timing, "twenty". The time seemed to stand still, "ten ...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two..." "ONE!!" Leah shouted out as the door was in sight. It had two be one of the beautifulness sights I had ever seen, the plain wooden door with a torch on either side of it. We screeched to a halt and sprang wildly fourth to open out into the new world.

"The honors?" Leah asked her hand gesturing to the old worn out door. I lifted my hand, the pale skin glowing in the darkness. I torched the ice cold knob and turned slowly, just too tense up Leah. "Okay open it already" she growled at me, and I impatiently turned the knob the rest of the way. I swung open the door and paused there frozen, my feet bolted to the floor as my stomach dropped to my feet.

Leah peered inside and gave a look of horror; I wrinkled my nose in disgust. We hadn't found the secret exit; we had stumbled onto a whole nether happening. One so disgusting that I would have to look away for a moment to regain my thoughts.

"Who could have done such a thing?" Leah's voice cracked in pain. "I don't know, I really don't know" it's all I could say as I stared at the gruesome inhuman sight. The sight of vampires blood thirsty and locked in cages, but none were purebloods. They howled in pain agony and despair, most of them holding their heads and covering their ears. I could count at least six, maybe seven but mostly girls. There were only two men both turned away from our curious eyes.

"Help us wont you?!" A young girl no older than sixteen cried out. Her shoulder length hair drooping out of the cage. I walked forward and the others flinched as well as Leah, "this is not right, but what we can do if we release them they'll hunt in the city!" her voice was hoarse and full of fright. "I know" my voice came out in a whisper. I walked to the blond girl's cage that had pleaded for our help, "What is your name?" I asked breathless as I noticed an injection mark on her bare ankle. "Samantha" she replied her voice shaky and unsure that she could trust us. "Samantha, I'm Somia and this is my twin sister Leah. You can trust us we're pure bloods" her eyes widen as I spoke the last of y sentence. "pur...p..pure bloods?" she struggled with the words slurring them out. "Yes, I promise we'll help but first you and all the others here must promise us something in return" she flinched at the thought of what it could be. "That's what he said" she whispered her eyes intent, "what who said?" I gave her a worried expression and her face softened up the tiniest bit. "Paradine" she hissed his name out. "Of course it was that sleaze bag!" Leah snorted from across the room, lifting up a jar of blue liquid and examined it.

"He told us that he could help us" she continued "he said that he would put us somewhere safe where nobody would get hurt" her voice was soft and high pitched. "He was right this way no one will get hurt just the way he meant it." Another girl spoke out; her crimson eyes shining brightly and her black short hair shudder in response to her movement. "What do you mean by that" Leah said in a thoughtful tone her eyes looked up from papers she had been reading. "He doesn't want us to hurt his people, the city and his entire kingdom" her voice was monotone and dead but wiry at the same time.

"Cant you break thought the bars of your cage?" I asked curious to why the are sitting around acting hopeless. "We're too weak, we haven't fed in months and others have died" Samantha's voice was became grave and fearful, as if she too was on the break of death. "This is insane" Leah declared outraged and stunned, as she threw papers to the ground. "What?" I asked viscously, "They were researching them their behavior and habits the language they spoke down to the ethnic backgrounds and their family". I shudder at the thought; he was keeping them here for research how disgusting.

"Leah I have a plan" I turned to her as I stood up straight "we need to check for whose sane enough to be released from captivity and keep the insane locked inside until they can get some food." I spoke so quickly so that the weak vampires could not hear that only some would and could be helped. "I will take this side you take that side" I assigned us our orders for now. I walked to the first cage on the right side of the room. "Whets your name?" I asked as a young women appeared out of the darkness, "Annabelle" she answered her body movements told me that she was apprehensive. "Annabelle, how old are you human years?" I asked softly as I tried to calm her. "Thirty four" she answered back quietly. "Still so young" I spoke to myself. "How long have you been in this reached cage?" I shudder closing my eyes as I spoke, "ten days". "So you're a new capture?" "Yes" she cringed away from the word. "Can you help me?" "Yes, fortunately for you your thirst is a small quench". As I spoke I opened the lock crushing it in one hand and opening the door with the other. "How long has it been since you have eaten last?" "Two weeks maybe a little more" she spoke roughly as she climbed out of her cramped enclosure.

I moved on to the next diminutive jail, and began the next interrogation. "Your name?" "Ian" his voice hit me like a gust of honeyed air. Breathless I continued "Ian how long have..." he cut me off eager to find out whether he was helpable. "Two weeks with out a meal" he grumbles through clenched teeth. "If I release you will you behave?" I asked in a perky voice, "yes, yes I will I promise!" his immediate response startled me. I sighed calming myself "okay" I said softly as I crushed another lock into robust dust and threw it aside as I open the cage door.

Once on his feet he pulled me behind him and assumed a familiar position, with his hands wing span and knees slightly crouched. I gazed past his wide spread arms to see the young girl I released just moments ago. She was crouched in a different position not an protective one like Ian, but n an threatening arrangement" who do you think you are?!" was all I heard before I was shocked out of an eggshell, by the ringing clash of her stone body smacking into the girl called Annabelle. "No" is all I could manage to whisper. "She was lying to you, this whole time" Ian spoke crossly. "What?" I gasped trying to gather my thoughts. "She's been here longer than me, and all the rest of us. She was using you as a pawn to get her way out into the city, to hunt." I dithered away from the word. "You couldn't see through her Somia?" Leah joked sarcastically. "No I guess I must be slipping" I mocked back.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two Soul Mate

Chapter two Soul Mate

We sat there on the ice bleak stone floor unsure if it was okay to let anyone else out. All I had released was Samantha the young blond girl and Ian the young dark brown almost black haired boy who had protected me. Leah had released a young boy named Quilette who had been a former slave before his vampire life. He was tall with dark chocolate brown skin and shoulder length frizzy hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Just three" I said shacking my head, "three out of seven" my voice was hoarse but still firm. We had counted the cages and all the level 2 vampires in them, seven including Annabelle. "We need to leave we cant stay here any longer they'll find us." Leah's whisper grew in volume as she spoke. "I know" I whispered back. I stood rubbing the back of my neck, and walked toward the back of the room. "Wait!" Ian bellowed. "What?" I asked annoyed by all the noise, "let us go with you! We can help you with what ever it is your doing." "No" Leah spoke as she stood slowly straightening up. "Why" Ian's loud tone became just and inocent whisper. "Because we're not doing anything, we just came to find the exit out and escape this dreadful city". It was the truth and we didn't need any tag along to bug us either. "Please, we don't all have to go." Ian pleaded with me, I turned to disagree but his beautiful brown eyes caught me by surprise instead.

"Umm...n...n...nanny" was all I could manage to say, as breathless as I was. "nnnnn.n.n...n... Yes" I blew air out in a sigh as I agreed to take him along. "Somia!?" Leah questioned and scolded at the same time. "What" I spoke exhausted. "Quilette can come to" I said seeing him stride forward to ask. His face lit up, making his skin glow.

I turned to Samantha, "you as well?" I asked annoyed at the fact that a mans eyes could make me give in so easily. "No, I'll be heading back to my family" she answered quickly. "Alright" I sighed, "let's get out of here." "Yes lets" Leah agreed sarcastically breaking through to a new mood. We slammed out of the room eager to get away from the parceling eyes of those who where unreliable. Leah slammed the old wooden door with such fortitude that it cracked from the center out.

Quilette turned to her quickly "shah." He whispered softly, and Leah only muffled a giggle. I rolled my eyes at them and continued on, at first we started on a fast walk then a fast jog and then a fast run. The tunnels near and around the now cracked old wooden door were lit with torches, hanging in metal shafts. The water's splashing sound was about a second late as we ran down the tunnels, though it was getting shallow now only ankle deep from the once knee high sewage. After running a few long minutes the moisten ground disappeared as we felt the dry hard clumps of rock slime into our bare feet. The running sounded like eight flat rocks smacking hard into the boulder like canvas of the sewer.

The further we went the darker it got, the torches disappearing behind us into the thick black of the unlit tunnels. We'd been sprinting for about seventy six miles now, as the time seemed to groan on and on. My eyes adjusted quickly, and for the better that we didn't smack dead ahead into the upcoming stone wall. I stopped the run about ten feet from the brightly lit wall; the only odd thing about it was that the lights weren't torches the where electrically lit wall lamps and nice ones at that.

"Whets this?" Leah broke through the concentrated silence; "like I would know" I beamed back in her direction. "There must be a secret entrance here" Quilette quickly suggested in Leah's defense. "Nice job Einstein" I mocked back, "hey I have a say in things to you know!" "Ohm is that right" I mocked him with an absurd expression. "Yes I'm part of the pack I can talk to you know now get used to it!" "Used to it?" I questioned my voice getting slightly louder with each passing word. "I shouldn't have to get use to it n..." I was broke off by ions silky smooth voice "enough" he shouted. It was enough to make me gasp the breathless accent id choked out, "we shouldn't be fighting, Quilette is right we are a pack now" his strong voice made my head spin. Quilette stuck his roseate tinge at me, "your no better Quilette, fighting with a pure blood she could kill you in an blink of an eye!" even though Ian was scolding us I felt as breathless as ever. The feeling I had rushing through my system was enough to make a human faint, in a good way. I could feel my cheeks turning bright red, but I wasn't embarrassed not in the least.

"Lest check for a secret entrance, and stop fighting" he demanded in his beautiful voice, as he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the wall. I instantly flushed, the same feeling going through me making me dizzy as I breathed in the sweet scent he was draped with. What was it? Flowers, no maybe honey, not a chance it was to sweet almost enough to knock me off my feet.

As we searched every wet slimy brick in the wall he bent down and whispered something in my ear. As I gush of sweet honey breath blew into my unready ear, I heard "strange isn't it? The way you make me feel, I can tell I make you feel the same way don't I?" has voice was so smooth against the uneven wet bricks, "and I thought I was crazy" I said aloud wandering my own thoughts. "Yes so did I" "you thought I was crazy?" I misunderstood his words, "no, I felt the same crazy, dizzy, and breathless every time you came near" his breath blew against the wall as he pulled and pushed at another brick. "What about in the cage room, why didn't it happen there?" I was utterly confused at this point in our secret conversation. "The overwhelming feelings in that room its enough to make you scream" he shook his head in disapproval.

"We should hurry" I suggested into his ear, the sound of my voice drove his heart off the wall as it rapidly flew over beats. "Yes" he agreed breathlessly". I peered over at Leah thinking she might have heard our little confessions, but she was in a secret conversation of her own.

Ian pulled at one last slime covered brick, and the next thing I know I'm being held wedding position about twenty feet from the wall. I looked up at Ian confusion sweeping across my face, then to the wall where one brick lay silent on the damp cobble stone. The wall gave a sudden groan of distress and collapsed at our feet. "Well would you look at that." Leah said in an awing of discovery. "Well Quilette you we're right." I whispered into Ian's chest. "Yeah I never thought it would happen like that though." He pointed out in an amazed voice. "I always thought the wall would slide back or to the side if you pulled one of the laps." His voice was getting hoarse, and it was obvious that he's never seen a trick wall before. "Have you never seen a trick wall before?" I asked gesturing toward the pile of broken slimey bricks. "No it's a first." He said sighing. "Just a heads up, they're every where in Victorian, okay?" I thought he ought to know what he was in for. "Okay" he nodded back in a whisper.

Ian lugged me into the gapping hole in the wall, stepping over the damp bricks with swift feet. "You don't have to carry me you know." I whispered holding on to his neck. "I know it just makes me feel like we're a couple" he confessed. I blushed a deep red, as blood pooled up around my cheeks. "I thought we were a couple." I pointed out, "well do you want to be?" he asked breathing faster than he was a moment ago. "Yes" I confessed, "then it's settled we're a couple." He spoke the words with a smug smile on his face.

When we reached yet another door, Ian set me on me feet with a light thump. As my heart fluttered, I regained my thoughts and examined the new door. It was a metallic door with about five locks and bolts. "Does he really think that's going to stop us?" Leah joked laughing and holding her stomach. "It wasn't meant to stop us, Leah." I pointed out. She stopped her laugh and glared at me, "you have to ruin all my fun don't you?" I only smiled.

"Okay let's get going" Ian suggested in a light voice. "You're not going anywhere!" A fierce voice snapped at us from behind. Ian's stone arms curved around my waist and turned me with him. In the swift movement his feet move, I caught the first glimpse of who we had encountered. "Mary-Angela" I gasped out of my puckered lips, and she wasn't alone. There stood the three vampires we couldn't save, right behind Mary-Angela.

"I think you know my friends, the dungeon rats." She giggled at the little joke. "It seems the tides have turned" a tall black haired woman noted, "yes the tables turned" the other short red haired girl agreed. "I call the girl on the left" another girl shouted from behind. Ian growled ferociously at her with piercing eyes.waung me around behind him and spread his arms once again protecting me. "This is hardly the time." I spoke in a glaring tone. "I wont let them hurt you" he shot back at me through his teeth. "No I have dibs on that particular one." Mary-Angela giggled through her tight smile. Ian's snarls ripped through his lips as he tried to speak but the snarls were too fierce to let anything out. His perfect lips were twisted around his teeth, his face in a snarl.

"Escape from the castle did you?" Mary-Angela giggled. "Yes and you?" Leah snarled gritting her teeth. "Orders" she stuck her tongue out at the word. "If you hate orders so much then escape with us." I suggested not sure if anyone could hear me over Ian's snarls. "Tempting... But no" she snickered at him. The only thing tempting Ian was Mary-Angela and her _dibs_ on me.

"Dibs" the black haired girl behind Mary-Angela called gesturing to Leah and Quilette growled. I gave Leah a quick glance and she did the same, we both new we had to settle this before it could even start.

We both sprang in the same split second her going for the black haired girl who apparently had_ dibs_ on her. I went for Mary-Angela. It seemed like slow motion since they moved a bit slower than us; we gladly had the upper hand here. Her golden hair fell slowly or at least it seemed that way, as she started to crouch low. I caught her pummeling her into the hard grimy stone below, and went for her neck with my teeth. She pulled away in a mere second of impact and trusted her stone fist to my face. She was always to slow as all lower class vampires were.

I finally nicked her but even a slight cut if made from our teeth could be fatal. She shot back about twenty feet holding her neck in agony, the venom spreading through her skin turning the veins black. She took one final gasp for air and collapsed to the slippery stone below. I turned my attention to Leah; she was standing against the wall cleaning her nails while Ian and Quilette danced circles around the last girl, the red haired girl. Her hair twisted and tangled as she looked every witch way, confused by the circle of white and black. They both sprang on her in the same instant, and my heart stopped as I closed my eyes and turned to the wall.

To me battle was this gruesome thing but for some odd reason or another it didn't bother me is I was the one fighting. As I leaned against the damp wall I felt a cold hand on my right shoulder, "sorry" Ian spoke and I could tell that there was no smile on his face. "For what?" "For making you see that." "It was nothing; I just wish we had a choice." My voice was only a whisper now.

He spun me around to face him, tears welling up in my eyes. "Don't cry, it's our nature you need to get used to it of all people" his honey breath almost knocked me over. "I know because I'm a pure blood so what, I don't care. I just want to get out of this place." I felt the tears turn into a salty river, and Ian's icy thumb whipping the tears away. "Please" he begged "stop crying". I swallowd the hard lump in my throat and tried to calm myself down, he picked me up and slung me onto his back and I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Let's go" I sniffled, "yes lets" he agreed in a whisper, it had been an emotional day for all of us and it was far from over.

The air was getting icy and I could see my every breath. I shivered, and snuggled into the hollow of Ian's chest. He was so cold but I didn't care, I wouldn't be able to pry myself away if it meant my life.

I was laying there thinking for hours about why his body is so cold and why mine is still so warm. There were a few similarities to us and the level two vampires, they didn't have a heart beat and neither did we they could also run faster than normal humans but we were faster than that. It seemed like everything they could do we could do better, but they were cold. "Ian?" I asked into the darkness and I felt his weight shift besides me as his arms tightened around me. "Yes?" he answered back, "why is it do you think that you are ice cold and I'm toasty hot?" he chuckled at my use of words. "I don't know" he confessed.

It's been a couple hours since we stopped running up the tunnel we found behind the bolted door. It was exhausting for us to run on an upward slanted tunnel, we even stumbled from time to time. "It feels like they're trying to make the tunnel vampire proof" I mentioned to him as I snuggled closer. "Yes, the slipping and tripping over unseen objects in the pitch black." "Yes" I said breathing in deep, his scent filling my lungs.

He suddenly jumped up me in his hands, and he slung me back into the piggy back ride position I was in before. "Leah" he whispered into the darkness, "yeah?" her voice sounded strange as if she was worried. "We have to go now! They're sending more this way." "More vampires?" she asked in a hush voice. "Worse Paradine him self is in this tunnel, seemed he purposely got bitten." He explained in a hushed snarl. "Let's go" I urged.

I wasn't sure if they all agreed because there was a silence and then we started to move, the icy air blowing chills through my body that never seemed to bother Ian. Well of course he's ice cold why would it? "Don't worry we'll be fine." He was trying to calm me down, could he really sense that I was biting my lip with tension?

It didn't matter all that mattered was that he was here and at last it seemed like I had found my soul mate. "Ian, do you think of me as your soul mate?" I was sure my words were lost in the wind, but sure enough he answered me. "Yes, that's if we have a soul." I sighed with relief and frustration. I had this conversation many times before, and it always had me thinking for hours on end. "We do have souls that are why when we die our body burns." "Burns?" "Yes, Mary-Angela is probably in flames by now." "And why would we burn?" he seemed interested in the turn of the conversation, so I decided to reply. "Our body's burn to release our souls, clear as they may be we spontaneously combust." "Are you sure it's our souls and not our venom?" he must either be curious or arguementive today but I became as interested in this as he had. "It's our souls, Leah and I have studied this particular subject for years trying to decide if we had a savior or not." "What did you find?" "We do" "we do?" his voice became unsure and curious. "Yes" I agreed with myself. "Please elaborate." I could see this was going to take an awhile but that didn't matter, if I could convince my soul mate that we infect had a soul then the feel that I to had one would finally sink in.

"We were in a remote part of Japan for the past ten years, studying our bodies and endurance. Then the subject of whether we had a soul came upon us, so we set out to find a test subject. A human who was willing to become a vampire and then give their life's to the study, but the only way to do that was to find someone suicidal."

"Did you?" his voice was as curious as ever lost in my story, "yes".

"His name was Robert Debarlio" the name rolled off my tongue. "He was a scientist gone mad, so far in debt that he was constantly on the run and suicide seemed to be the only thing that made sense to him. We found him at Mount Fuji trying to jump off a peak, but we convinced him to do his bidding more humanely. We took him back to our research center and bit him, a week of unconsciousness passed with us always on end thinking we'd killed our only subject, but never thinking of discarding him. He funnily woke up on the eighth morning, and we began testing the same day. Leah bit him and we taped, heat censored, audio recorded, and chemical tested the whole thing." I swallowed hard remembering the poor man who had chosen such a terrifying path. "Well?" Ian was hanging on end listing to my every word, "in the heat sensory test we found a heat source." I continued but was interrupted. "From the fire?" "Yes urr and from another thing. You see there was a higher amount of heat in another mass, a shapeless mass. Its degrees were off the charts over three thousand degrees!" "What happened to the object?" his voice strained as well as mine. "It rised like vapor, we were sure it would burn a hole in the celleing but nothing. The more we watched the tape we saw that its peak of heat was right at the same point he spontaneously combusted then the temperature drifted lower and lower till it reached absolute zero, the point at witch every thing freezes." "What happened then? Nothing?" "Not exactly, the lamp exploded and that's about it"

He chuckled once and then it became silent, only the sound of his feet hitting the cement tunnel. He hadn't slipped in such a long time I was beginning to wonder why, "have you noticed that there have been no slips for a long while?" "Yes I have" he agreed. "Is the ground dry now?" "No but for some reason there hasn't been any slimey spots for about five minutes." "Really? Him" it was hard to believe that only five minutes had passed but it felt like hours to me. "What?" he was wondering what I was thinking and I was wondering the same about him? "It just felt like hours not minutes to me." He only sighed an oh and then it was silent again.

I rested my head on his stone like shoulder and thought quietly to myself. Why where we the way we were? Hard as rock but warm as summer? How can Ian be so cold and as hard as rock but still technically alive? He hasn't heard his own heart beat in years and I have never heard mine but surely its there isn't it? "What are you thinking about?" Ian broke through the tension with curiosity. "Do you ever wonder how it is that we are alive but have never heard our heart beat?" "Your heart does beat, you just can't hear it" "how would you know?" seriously how could he know when I myself can't hear it? "Because I hear it" "what? How?" "I don't know but for some reason I can hear your heart if I listen closely" listen? Closely? So simple but yet complicated. I sat there in silence concentrating on his chest, trying to block out all the other sounds. The wet claps of his feet hitting the pavement vanished into the darkness and I listened intently not moving a muscle and barely breathing. As I listened I suddenly heard a thump and then another and another, I wasn't sure if my minds was playing tricks on me or if I was truly hearing his heart. I felt my eyes squeeze out a salty tear as I listened to his heart start to flutter at the scent of my salty drops. I hugged his neck tight and lay there in one of the happiest moment of my life; his heart beat was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

I listened to his heart beat for a long moment until my silence was broken by a crashing sound like a rock hitting a rock, and then I opened my eyes to a blinding light. We were out.

Before I could get a good enough look around to tell Ian where we were along the wall we were moving again fast as ever now. Worried I put my hand up to his forehead to feel for injuries, a silly thing to do considering we were both hard as rock. "don't worry.." he whispered grabbing my hand from his forehead, "I'm okay..." he spoke into my skin as he kissed the top surface of my wrist, leavening behind a tingling sensation. "It was just a sewer strainer there's nothing too worry about." he was as right as ever, a sewer strainer made of iron or copper stood no chance against us. Even though he was week from captivity, he still could break through some metals but it wouldn't be long till his legs gave out.

"My legs" he hissed under his breath, "they're getting weak, almost too weak to run!" his voice cracked in pain. "stop." I urged him "stop! Just stop!" I was almost pleading now. "No if we stop we'll have a fight on our hands." "No we'll be fine! Just stop right now!" "No!" he was angry now, the fact that I wanted to stop running from danger but he was the only one in danger now. If his legs gave out he could seriously hurt himself when he crashed to the ground. I had to pull a dirty trick but it was the only way I knew to get him to rest, "stop or I'm jumping off!" I could feel the shift in his mood as we slowed to a steady pace the stopping al together. "Idiot" Leah called under her breath, "he needed to rest" I argued. "Oh I no I was talking about him." She corrected with a wide grin.

"Lets go I've rested enough." He urged panting fiercely. "No, no one is coming for us right now. There still stumbling there way through the slipperiest part of the tunnel, we'll be fine." His panting slowed a bit but it still worried me. "Go hunt Ian, we'll stay behind and wait for you." Leah suggested in a calm sweet voice, that I only knew made Quilette purr. "No, Somia ne..." "Go" I cut him off and he looked up to me in disbelief his hands on his knees and still panting. "If you don't you'll die or get seriously hurt." He looked at me with sad eyes and he knew that I was right.

I hated to make him go alone but it was the only way he could mindlessly hunt with out worrying about my safety. He stood straight cracking his back, then slowly walked forward and then ran.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three Starting an End

Chapter three Starting an End

I sat in silence worrying about Ian, with every second that passed came a new topic. What if he was captured or was lost? What if he got hurt or something far worse? But my biggest question that constantly ran through my head was what if he wasn't coming back? I sat on the cold ground rocking back and forth, thinking and waiting, waiting and thinking. Just thinking and thinking endlessly, what went by as minutes seemed like hours and even though I knew it had only been half an hour it seemed like days?

"I can't stand this anymore, when is he coming back?" Leah's voice brought me out of my thoughts "I don't know soon I hope." "I hope so to for your sake, look at you your sitting there rocking back and forth on the ground with your head to you knees" "so" "so, so look at what has done to you if he doesn't come back I'll kill me my self" she was being over protective but I knew she was telling the truth.

"He'll come back don't worry" Quilette's voice surprised me; he wasn't very talkative except when it came to Leah thus the phrase meant to be. "Yeah I know but I am so accustomed to him always being here with me." "You've only been together for like five hours!" Leah was defiantly not as sensitive as I am but she has her moments. "Yeah but I feel like its been years, like I already know so much about him. Isn't it interesting? How close I feel to him after just meeting it's like... well I'm not sure but there has to be a name to it." I was pondering now. "Let's try love at first sight." I heard his creamy voice from behind. I turned spinning on my knees with my palms to the ground, "your back!" I smiled and he chuckled as he strides over taking my hands. "I wasn't gone for long." He spoke as he pulled me up to my feet, "it felt like hours to me." I spoke a grim smile in my voice. He pressed his cold nose against mine and gave me an Eskimo kiss, "I'm sorry I kept you waiting but I feel much better on the flip side." I could feel the blood in my cheeks pool up making me blush; I giggled a lovey dovey sound and then was swept off my feet by his cool arms.

"I'll never leave you, so don't worry your pretty head about such things." He spoke with such softness to his voice, that it gave me chills in a good way though. "I know." I whispered smugly as he hugged me into the hollow of his chest. I rested there for a moment closing my eyes in hope that the world around us would disappear and only we were left here. No Paradine, no thirst, no vampires or power hungry priest, just Ian Leah Quilette and I.

I knew my fantasy was a never possible dream but I continued to imagine it all in my head, until Leah put her roasting hand on my shoulder. I jumped with chills turning putting my back to Ian. "Geese sneak up on me much?" I was sarcastically scared and all my jumpiness did was put a smile on the others faces. I gasped for breath to relive the empty space in my lungs, "okay love birds its time to get moving, we need to find a waterfall or stream okay?" her voice was friendly though I still shook with the chills she had given me just a moment ago. "I know where a waterfall is, I passed one when I was chasseing a cougar earlier." Ian new the area around here a bit better than the rest of us since he had been out hunting for the past forty five minutes. "Good then our search is over before it started. Let's go" he nodded once pulling me into place on his back but I slid off letting my feet thud into the ground. Ian turned looking confused "I want to stretch my legs" I said pulling my lips into a smirk. "Ah" he acknowledged my demand and began forward. "follow me." He sigh with a stern voice.

We traveled for maybe a minute more or less and about ten miles before we reached the water fall. It was beautiful in every way, the water hitting the rocks and the babbling sound of the stream. But isn't that what we came here for? The sound?

"Okay so let me get something straight why did we have to run ten miles to get to a waterfall so we could plan out our actions?" Quilette obviously curious wanted our explanation. "Because the sound of the water drowns out our voices no matter how hard they are listening to our conversation." Leah explained putting her pale hand up to her ear. "So you want to make sure no one can listen?" "Yes". We all sat around one the ground at first separately. We were about to plan it all out but Ian picked me up with one arm and set me in his lap. Of course I blushed. "Have you ever held a guys hand before?" he asked grinning wide. "Uh um" was all I managed to squeak out before he held his hand up with mine entwined in his cold fingers? "How does it feel?" he asked looking into my eyes, and for an instant I thought I was melting. "Um" I still couldn't speak a full word there as I sat on the damp ground in between his legs.

"Ahem!" Leah cleared her throat. I had forgotten about our little audience of two. "Lets get started" Leah answered my unspoken words in a professional business like manner. : Where are we going to go? Paradine won't stop looking for you until you're his bride." "His bride?" Ian said looking at me his face getting even paler if possible. "Long story but I said no twice." I told him it was the truth so I had no worries about it. "Oh" he said with a smile.

"Anyways" Leah said to clear up the atmosphere. "Were we heading?" "How's about a new city in Japan?" "We were just there though!" "Yes, and they know that so they wont be looking there." "That's..." Leah continued "a good point." She sighed I knew she wanted to go somewhere new but we didn't have many options. "Okay Japan it is but what city?" "How's about Osaka?" "Sure" she made a face at me. Osaka was boomed during a world war but it was rebuilt and Leah liked the old time Osaka better. "Whets our role going to be?" "Students in ninth grade" "what about school?" "Imamura high school" "okay lets get going" Leah and I had planned out the whole next couple of years with out Ian or Quilette help.

"Osaka, Japan?" Quilette asked. "Yes it's a place they would never think to look. We need to start moving; Japan is to the west from here so we're going to start in that direction and you'll follow us got it? Leah was controlling the plans for the moment and she seemed to like that allot. "How long will it take us to get to Osaka?" Ian asked trying to plan out hunting trips in his head. "Let's see we can run at about six hundred miles and hour and japans' only twelve hundred miles from here so about two hours to get to Japan and about twenty minutes to get to Osaka." I planned the map out in my head calculating the time distance and routes it was easy with centuries of practice.

"Okay let's get going then." Leah suggested walking toward the west. We walked with her and then ran. In a flash we were gone with no trace that we had ever been there.

I was tired of running from Paradine, but what could we do knew that he had the venom running through his veins? Kill him? I hate killing people I much rather kill an animal. But I guess I'm just use to it since the law was accepted in Victorian, and even when we left we took that law with us.

I felt like there was something missing as I ran through the forest though it had been half an hour and the time seemed to fly by. I was still thinking about the differences between the level two vampires (Ian and Quilette) and the pure bloods (Leah and I). It wasn't long until the subject of marriage popped into my head. It wasn't forbidden to marry or love a level class under you it was just frowned upon. So I spouse I could live with that, especially if I include the fact that Leah and I are the only pure bloods left. Or so we assumed seeing as how we hadn't seen another pure blood in almost one hundred and thirty years. The last pure blood we saw was a man named Brandon and he was already dieing of his injuries when we found him.

I really didn't care if it was frowned upon though I could care less of what people thought f me. Threes still that thing that always bothers me though, but it doesn't bother me with Ian. The men always say that they're love is true but when they get what they want wither its money or material things they up and leave. That always other me but something about Ian makes me not only think but know he won't leave.

It's been an hour knows and we're about half way to Japan. At least my mind is catching a different subject now, the subject of afterwards when the wedding is over us pure bloods when marrying under us have to drink the blood of our soul mate. At least its only drink not kills but the thought of hurting Ian was troubling me of course we weren't engaged or anything.

My mind pondered on this subject for the rest of the hour until we got to the Sea of Japan or in other word the east sea. "How do we get across?" Quilette asked Leah and I muffled a giggle. Ian only had a smirk on his face it seemed that Quilette was the only one who hadn't crossed water before. "You can run across or swim. Your choice" she giggled on the word swim, probably thinking he would choose it over the run. "I think I'll do what ever it is your doing sweetie." He reached his hand up to her face and brushed a drop of water off that the ocean had sprayed. "Ahem" I broke their long gaze and blushing cheeks just the way Leah had broken Ian and ifs earlier. "Right" she sighed and the began the short trip over the waters mercy surface.

I always loved running on water, because if you looked close you could see the curious fish and even sharks if you're lucky. It only takes us about five minutes to get to the island of Japan and then about another five to get to Osaka, once there we'll find somewhere to live.

Even though the trip was short it still gave me time to think more about the after wedding, and how life will be like for Ian and Quilette when they enroll in the high school as well. I knew we would have all our classes together if I could per sway the administrators and how hard could it be to break in and change a few things? I didn't have time to think about the situation yet.

Once we arrived in Osaka Leah and I broke into a clothing store, for money to spend, rent, and for the enrollment. We would need to pay for food and furniture as well. The store name was _Juine Swayve._ It was fancy and loaded as well. But it was also one of the easiest break inns I have ever done; we got about four thousand from them easy. Next we went to find an apartment someplace nice with at least two bedrooms and a bathroom. We found one called East Osaka creak, it had three bedrooms two bathrooms a nice kitchen, a living room and a balcony. It cost about five hundred a month if you're a student so we got lucky there, but we needed to go buy clothes and furniture.

Our next stop was at a girl's school uniform shop called Lawrara Shop, they had some cute uniforms but we ended up with the one our school assigned us. It was cute with its dark red ribbon on the green neck peace and the green skirt with the one little dark red pin strip line at the bottom. We also grabbed legwarmers, school bags, and key chains.

We stopped by the local grosser store to get food as props in the house and then at the cheap furniture store to get a couch, four twin beds, a desk, computer, and table. Witch went nicely in our new little home. We would start school in a week plenty of time to get everything situated.

Leah and I sent Ian and Quilette to a more expensive furniture store to get a safe while we went to a shopping district on the outskirts of town; we needed some time to relax after all the chasseing.

The mall was beautiful and full of school girls rustling around to get a good sale. We stopped at a novelty store to look around, and found some posters and picture frames to go in our rooms. After all we had to put up a good show if we wanted to fit in and slip by.

Leah dragged me into a shop called Chocolate Sugar; it had cute clothes that she wanted to try on. "What do you think?" she asked me holding up a harajuku style skirt. "Cute I think I'll get one in black" I picked up the black colored skirt and held it in front of me to look it over. "Yeah I'll get the pink one" she nodded to her self and then began looking through another rack. "So do you think we can last long here?" I asked curious to what she thought. "Yes... and no" she hesitated on the last word making a face. "No?" "Well what if someone from that little town comes to Osaka? They could see us and ask why we are in high school again. Or Paradine would find us and make a big scene and we'd have to leave.

"Yeah I see your point but I doubt that will ever happen. The town we were in was so small and no one ever left, and Paradine is to pride full to leave his city. I never sensed him leavening the tunnel." Leah sighed a sign of relief. "How's about this?" I asked holding up a pink shirt with a black cat on it. "Cute it'd go with the skirt." She pointed out and I nodded in agreement.

The shopping was fun but we had to blend in so we took the forty five bus home. "Do you think it was a good decision to ride this thing?" Leah spoke as the bus bumped and rumbled along. "It's fast for humans and we look normal riding it so yes it was a good decision." "Okay." She said putting her hands up in serener. It took about ten minutes to get to the apartment by bus and Leah complained the whole way. "This thing is so slow!" "Shah is quite!" "My butts sticking to the seat!" "Ohh well just shut up!" "The windows won't open and I want a breeze!" "You know what?!" I said turning to her and I saw the smile on her face she was messing with me and it ticked me off.

When we finally arrived we jumped off the bus in a hurry and took the elevator up to the twelfth floor. Ian was inside on the couch reading a mange magazine and Quilette was on a recliner watching television. Our mouths dropped. Not only Leah's and If's but Ian and Quilette to. "You bought a recliner and television?" Leah said in an angry awe. "So look at how much clothes you bought!" Quilette answered back eyeing the hands full of bags with different store names on them. She just lifted her nose into the air and walked casually into the back bedroom with Leah and If's beds.

"The nerve of them buying stuff with our rent money!" she scoffed after slamming the door and laying the bags of clothes on her bed. "We spent allot to and we still have enough for rent, we can always go steal some more money you know." "Yeah but I don't like stealing it's not right and plus we had our money rosined out." "Yeah but ohh well its money not the end of the world." I reminded her and she took one deep breathe to calm herself down.

"Let's put our clothes away okay?" I finally said breaking the silence. "Yeah we should." She agreed emptying the bags onto her bed. I emptied mine and put the shirts on hangers and lifted them into the closet with out saying a word. It seemed that a new backward silence had drifted over us. I began putting the pants and skirts on hangers when Leah finally sighed. "What if we don't fit in?" she said with a gloomy look sweeping across her face. She looked up to me her excretion constantly changing from worried to sad to worried again. "We will we always do".

I tried to calm her a little by making a face she giggled a stiff sound and then sighed her way out of the room. I sat on the bed and thought to me for a long moment until Ian came through the door with a lime green comfier under one arm and a bag of poles in the other. I sighed again and lazily lifted my self from the bed and sat on the floor. He only grinned and the started putting the rest of the bed together by fastening the poles to the four corners and putting the canopy drapes on a new set of poles all while talking to me.

"Why so sad?" "I'm not sad I'm just worried that's all." "About what?" he asked in disbelief that I would be worried at all. "About if we will fit in at the new high school." "We will" "I know but I still worried about this kind of stuff" "yeah, just don't get caught up in it all, we may have to leave sooner than we want."

He was right, if we got to close here we would be in to deep and would want to defend our stay but that can't happen. I thought to my self looking up every now and then as the metal bars clunked together. "There now you can make your bed." He smiled patting the rolled up comfiture. I lifted myself from the floor making lazy movements, "alright let's hurry up imp tired." I sighed out of my stiff lips. And before I even got to the bed he had made it. I lifted the comforter and slid under it. I laid there thinking as the minutes passed, Ian and Quilette sit on the sofa watching TV and Leah on the twin bed next to mine. It was quite except for the small sounds of the TV in the other room, but I didn't pay any attention to them. Even though Leah and couldn't sleep we lay there in our beds thinking to ourselves about tomorrow, our first day of school in Osaka. It wasn't something we particularly enjoy but we would have to fit in after our first school experience Leah and I had hated the whole ordeal.

I remember it as fresh as the night was clear, the beautiful morning air and the cloudless sky. I sat there on the ground in front of the school talking to Laura. She was one of my good friends at the time. She had shoulder length brown hair and freckles across her nose. We sat there talking about stuff and then she mentioned Shandra. _Shandra never hangs out with Cassie any more I wonder why._ She asked herself allowed. _ They still hang out with each other; I think it's that you just don't see them hang out in school because they have no classes together._ I tried to explain it to her and I saw a frown swipe across her face. _I don't like Shandra anymore she's not very nice and I think she's a ho!_I gasped when she said the word gritting her teeth. _Well I still like her and she's one of my best friends, so imp warning you I will tell her._ Her frown got even bigger and her face scowled. She lifted her nose in the air and got to her feet._ Well don't._ She told me before walking away.

The whole day seemed to slum by as I waited for study hall, the only class I had with Shandra. The funny thing was that when I was walking to lunch with Megg, Clair walked up to me her face sad and she eminently told me her story. _Somia! People at lunch were talking about you! They said you called Shandra a ho, and they want to jump you! _I laughed of course you can guess why. The thought of one little person or even a couple putting me in danger was just funny as all get out. _Wait what? I never called Shandra a ho that was what Laura said!_ I said with furry in my voice. She had turned it against me and I had to talk to Shandra and fast. Lunch rushed by my stomach uneasy. I sat in the cafeteria waiting for study hall to start when Shandra walked up to me her face twisted._ I need to talk to you._ She whispered out with anger. _I need to talk to you to and I think now would be the best time._ I suggested and she nodded her head until her senior friends butted in._ No! We will talk you will listen. _Shandra looked up at them fro a moment like they were signaling something to her. _Yeah and I don't appreciate what you said about me!_ She then agreed and walked away leaving me in the pit of the lions.

I looked at her in disbelief, she was so easily turned against me then she wasn't my friend. Then the two seniors came walking around to my table. _Don't you ever call Shandra a ho do you understand me?_ A short dark haired girl shouted at me and I ignored what she said all I could think about was her clothes a belly shirt tight jeans and baggy jacket she was the one who looked like a dirty woman to me. _Yeah don't you disrespect her!_ The other girl called from the other side and soon they were both yelling as I ignored them and started to do my homework. The junior boy sitting across form looked up at them his brows turned down as he stood. _**Shut up! You two are just losers!**_ He yelled at them both and they turned around and sat down. He sat swell and looked at me. _Did you really call her that?_ He asked to get both sides of the story._ No I would never it was Laura not me I swear!_ He only nodded his head and started to work.

The next couple of days they were in my face when no upper class man were around to protect me so just to let the dust settle I started a plan to disappear for the rest of the year and it worked with out a hitch. I hated the fact that I had to hide but I couldn't risk a fight.

I awoke out of my day dream during the night with Leah getting up to turn off her alarm. This was how it was for us, an alarm to remind us of the time we didn't even have to sit in bed but we did. I felt like sitting alone, like solitary confinement only no one confined me to the bed.

I pulled the covers off and stumbled a little in the darkness over to where my closet lay in the wall. I opened the double doors and switched on the closet light. I walked to the back and pulled one of many school uniforms off a metal closet bar. I walked out of my walk in closet flipping the switch and closing the doors with my hand and foot.

I walked into the bathroom closing the door and sliding the uniforms wire hanger on one of the four hooks placed on the back of the door. I stood there glaring at myself in the pitch black, wondering if it was worth all this effort. Couldn't we just grab a trailer and steal more money? Just travel across country shopping in expensive stores and buying extravagant dinners? I guess that's not what we really want.

"Are you alright in there?" Leah called from the other side of the door. I picked up my uniform skirt and sighed. "Yeah" I replied stiffly as I pulled on the dark green material. "Just checking." She reassured me as I pulled the white blouse over my head. "I'll be out in a minute." I called as I tied the crimson bow. I sighed to myself and the turned on the light to reveille myself in school attire.

I looked myself up and down and smirked at the reflection in the mirror. I grabbed a brush and styled my hair, and then I opened the first drawer on the left side and grabbed my makeup bag. I didn't need makeup but anything to blend in. I pulled out my black eyeliner and mascara, that's about all I used seeing as how I didn't really need any thing else. I quickly put them on and reached for my lip gloss. I opened the door and headed for the kitchen. "Hey" I said slumping onto the couch. "What time is it?" I wonder aloud. "Five till we leave for school." Ian answered as Leah came into the living room.

"We can just leave now no point in waiting a couple minutes to go to school; let's just get it over with already." I stood up taking her suggestion, and headed for the door. "Alright let's go then" Ian said through drained lips walking up to the door stiffly. He was nervous but what did it matter anyway? We walked to the elevator and waited for it to rise to our floor. It took about fifteen seconds; I counted them in the silence. We stiffly walked into the box and pressed the lobby button. The elevator took about thirty seconds to take us down including the time it took for the door to close.

When we arrived at the bottom we went straight out the double doors outside, surprise. There where four cars new shiny and ours? Ian held up two sets of keys one in each hand, "witch do you want? The silver slug bug or the black Bentley?" "Bentley" I said holding out my hand for the keys. Leah jumped up and down when she received hers; a silver slug bug was her car to love. Ian took a red porches and Quilette had an midnight blue Lamborghini. "Idiots" I murmured. This wasn't going to help us fit in any just stick out. Ian lifted his hands up in wonder and sarcasm "what?" he said smirking his dark almost black hair blowing softly in the breeze.

I shook my head and clamed into the car. I looked forward at Ian and felt the slight shift in the air. Without thinking I kicked the car door off and assumed my stance. In that very same instant Ian was by my side eyes wide with furry. "So soon?" Quilette asked with a sigh as he clamed out of the shiny blue car. Leah was on my left then and whispered into my ear. "Head east" she smiled before disappearing. "Come on" I hissed to the boys and I disappeared to.

Chapter four Deaths Toll

We had been running for about an hour now and we had caught up to Leah. I wasn't sure of how many he had brought or of how long we could fight but he found us and fast. We stopped now at the end of our trail, at a cliffs side the ocean crashing up against the rocks. "What now? We can't run forever." I cried confused dazed and most of all scared. "I know but we can't stay and face them there are so many." Her words were caught in the wind but I could still hear her. "I'm tired of running scared Leah we need to do something or we'll never be safe!" I cried into the wind tears streaming down my face hot and salty. "But how? How do you stop running scared from something your afraid of?" she was crying to now. I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to face the man himself, "Paradine." I glared twisting my mouth around his name. "Isn't it lovely the works of a little venom?" he purred into he howl of the wind. "It's against the law to bite a human, Paradine. You're a federal crime" Leah scowled at him her hair whipping viciously in the salty air.

"Yes but it's not against the law to inject yourself." He grinned happily. It took me about three seconds to understand and all that sadness went blank with anger. "You used Mary-Angela's dead venom to turn yourself?" I scowled growling at the name. He only smiled wider "you may be beautiful Paradine but you're a monster in my eyes!" Leah growled deep within her chest. I gritted my teeth, "disgusting" I managed to let out of the uncontrollable snarls in my chest.

He came forward and crouched down ready for attack, "if you won't marry me then no one can!" he growled the words and I crouched as well. We began moving in circles copying each others moves going from left to right in rhythmic patterns. I noticed that Leah and Ian had begun to fight Quilette still on the defense. My slight distraction gave Paradine the moment he needed and he crashed his stone shoulder into my chest pushing me over the cliffs edge. I grabbed the grassy rock side to keep from falling and began to pull myself up.

Ian threw a fist into a young vampires jaw and rushed to my aid. He reached out for my hand and pulled me up. My first sight of the fight was that Leah had set someone afire. The poor vampire was running wildly about. Ian grabbed my hand tightly, and then kissed my mouth with an scary tension to his lips. I didn't protest because I knew we were both in mortal danger. It scared me the way his lips moved against mine giving me so many unasked questions that I had no answer to.

I pulled away breathless and gazed deep into his brown eyes, he pulled me to him again but before our lips touched I could see Paradine out of the corner of my eye. His face flushed red with anger as he realized that I had found my one and only. I ignored his glare and crushed my lips to Ions knowing it could be the last time our lips touched. The salty air gave the hotness a kick and the kiss some power. My knees we getting week my head clouded with fantasy as his lips took over commanding mine. I ran my hands through his hair, as the rain came pouring down. I could still hear the screaming of the flaming boy the poor unfortunate soul.

Paradine had commanded someone with a deep snarl but I ignored it. Suddenly Ian was pulled away from my waiting lips. The rain was pouring down so hard I could only see about two feet in front of me, but that was enough to watch Ian and the flaming boy collide and fly into the mist. I ran toward the dim light the grass crunching beneath my feet. The rain was blinding as I stumbled toward the light that had disappeared. I slipped on cliff side grass tumbling over to be caught by Leah's hand around my wrist.

I was at the edge, the cliffs edge. I dangled in the pouring rain my mind mush. I began to cry and my chest started to hurt. "The cliff!" I cried out in pain. "Yes now let's pull you and Ian up." Leah shouted into the mist. "I don't-." My voice cracked off the sobs grew intense. "I don't have him Leah." I broke out weeping hard. "What?" she asked her voice panicky. "I didn't reach him Leah." I sobbed against the cliff side. "Has gone Leah has gone!" my chest was giving tight squeezes, a stabbing pain. In that instant I realized it was my heart hurting, and for the first time I had felt it deep in my chest.

I cried my tears disappearing in the rain, the stone cliff got colder and the world around me began to shift. I was panicking gasping for air my sobs cutting through me, my eye lids were getting heavier by the second. The world around me grew black and my body became week and limp. I shut my eyes and it all went quite.

The quite gave me a peace, an illus ional world something to get away to where everything was perfect. To some the quite may sound scary but to me the real sounded scary. I guess that was my coping point. The way I differed the two world the real world and my world the quite world where Ian was still here with me and I spent forever in his arms. The quite was a place where a kiss could last an eternity and an love could never die. It was my place my perfect place.

Maybe it was the crazy running through my veins or the sudden shift in the world I knew as the quite but my eye lids had gotten lighter and I felt my heart start to hurt once more. I lay there wherever I was, not caring just letting my heart hurt and my eyes stay closed. I couldn't think about anything else but him he was my world and for the short time we were together I was his. There wasn't anything I could do to make the pain go away but could I distract myself from it? No it wasn't possible to forget about a pain as deep as this, my mind was set on it and time was all I needed to heal.

It was so unreal like something in a movie, how someone could be taken from you like that. I ran through all the movies I had seen how people coped with the pain what was they're next move? Some moved away others used suicide; there was revenge and new lovers to fill the empty space. Wait revenge. In that instant my mind shot to the revenge cycle, most people give up or fail others get there revenge and end up dying in the end. But imp not human ill get my revenge, Paradine will die and I will take over his kingdom. My plan was perfect, if I followed it precisely it would work without a hitch.

First things first I had to sneak away from Leah, it would be hard but it's a sacrifice imp willing to make. I opened my eyes and found that I was in the bedroom of the last apartment we had recently run from. Leah wasn't here she must be grading the building from the outside. I walked over to my night stand and picked up a green picture frame. The picture was of Ian and me in front of the apartments in our school uniforms. It was the day we first got the apartment, we were smiling and joyful. I broke the frame in my hand and removed the picture. I started at it for a moment longer then folded it and shoved it in my jacket pocket.

I was still in my school uniform like it matter. There was no attire for revenge and taking over a kingdom so why change?

I slid open my bedroom window slowly inch by inch. When the gap was large enough for me to fit through. I slipped out grabbing the side of the building. If I just jumped out it would make a noise loud enough for Leah to hear. I quickly and quietly scaled down the wall careful not to slip until my feet reached the ground. The grass was still wet from the night of rain and the ground was very muddy in some places. I didn't know where to start or witch direction to go in I just took off on instinct alone.

I guessed it would take an hour maybe more to reach the city I could sneak in the same way I sneaked out. I had to suppress the memory of Ian as long as possible if I were to get my revenge. But if I sneaked in I would have more a chance to get caught, then if I wanted to get caught.

I smiled wickedly to myself relishing the perfect way to get so close to Paradine that no one would notice my scheme. I had to marry him. The well thought out plan played like a movie in my head and when that movie was over I had reached Victorian.

I stood in front of the wall for an hour maybe more waiting for them to realize that I was there but no one came nothing happened and I knew I had to open the gate myself. I folded my hands together and recited some words, but instead of the mahogany gate and arch shaped light appeared. I stood there for a moment departing to myself and then walked blindly forward into the light. I exited out the same way the last time I had come here, in the middle of the city in front of the white fairytale castle. I didn't hesitate I just walked forward with confidence eager to get the plan in motion. I climbed the many steps and reached the hideous door with Paradises face on it. I winced away from the image as I pulled the door open. Inside was the same the blooded and many paintings portraits and sculptors of me. Obsession can drive a man insane. I hurried through to the next door not looking at the many familiar faces and entered the thrown room, where Paradine himself was plopped on the oversized chair his head mounted on his cheek.

As soon as he caught glimpse of me he jumped to his feet and rushes over stopping five feet away." this is an unexpected surprise." He murmured. "I would have never guessed you'd come back to me let alone the city." Hi smiled his teeth glistening in the light. "I know, a month ago neither would I." I smiled my best lusty smile to put on a good show. "Why" he paused "is it that you came back may I ask." His face became bewildered. "I have finally realized my lord." I would never call him lord but this is an exception. He nodded for me to continue, "That you are my only need and that I hope you will forgive my childlike behavior." I bowed at his feet and almost gagged. "I thought so" he smiled a crooked smile as he kneeled in front of me. "This is the last time I will ever ask you Somia." He said his honey voice sounding like a growl in my ears. He lifted my head with his hand and gazed into my eyes as I into his. All I could see was shallow waters twisted into blue.

"Somia Hen ridge, will you marry me?" I wanted to gag and yell no in his face but for the plan to succeed I had only one choice. "Yes" I whispered and he let go of my face. We both stood together him taking my hand and smiling to our audience. "Send out invitations there is to be a wedding" he howled smiling from ear to ear. The room applauded us and he called a woman over. He whispered in her ear she nodded then grabbed me by the wrist. "Come with me miss" she spoke in a soft voice as she pulled me along.

She took me to a bridal shop full of white gowns and long silky gloves, but instead of the display gowns she led me to the back of the shop where a beautiful puffy white wedding gown was on a revolving mantle. "Do you like it?" she asked walking over to the piece and adjusting the material. "Yes" I awed breathless. It's the exact dress I would picture myself wearing if I had been able to marry-. Never mind I thought gathering my emotions. "Paradine requested the design he said it would look right on you." She smiled at the word. Right. It would look right on me? "You don't think so?" she asked I shrugged my shoulders. She smiled "threes only one way to find out" she said with great enthusiasm as she carefully pulled the dress off the mantle and placed it in my arms.

"Try it on" she smiled wider and then left the room skipping. I shook my head and undressed. I pulled the dress on then called for her. "Yes" she said poking her head into the room. "Can you get the back for me?" I asked turning around then looking over my shoulder at her. She buttoned my up and pushed me in front of the mirror. "Oh" was all I managed. The reflection was not one I recognized though it was breath taking. "What do you think? He'll love it right?" she asked tailoring the bottom of the gown with pins in her mouth. "Yes he will." I answered still in awe. I would have never pictured my self her in the scene I was in, not in all my wildest dreams would I imagine that I would marry Paradine even if for a short moment.

"alright." She gasped standing on her feet. "Let's get you over to Paul. She said with a smile. "Why whets Paul going to do?" I asked suddenly flustered. "Your hair and makeup silly." She laughed then pushed me out into the main shop where she covered me with a very large trench coat that covered the whole dress. "Let's go." She squealed in excitement and pushed me toward the door.

When out side there was a crowd of young woman and men. The woman squealed whispering to each other, "Why did she suddenly have this change of heart?" one whispered. "I wish I was fit to marry the king" another whispered. The men just stood there rubbing their chins as we passed by giving each other quick glances. I bowed my head looking straight to the ground. I left my sister for this? I wanted revenge through this? Does revenge really feel like this? A million questions started running through my head making it impossible to think.

I sorted through every wonder one by one until there were none left and I was able to breathe easy again. "Don't worry they wont talk for long soon you'll be queen!" the said the women who had given me the dress. She in particular was excited and unusually kind about this all. "Why are you so different?" I asked straighten my head up to look at her. "What do you mean?" she said tiling her head slightly to the side. "well everyone else is criticizing this wedding and talking gossip what about you why are you so nice?" she smile wide and her cheeks became rosey.she laugh a little and turned her head forward her long curly hair fastened in a bun. "Well you see it's not so hard to be nice when threes all a sudden joy around you." She smiled again her face seemed to glow. "What I mean is I am a royal clothes designer and my entire job up until now has been for is to make Paradine's clothes and some guard uniforms." She explained eyeing the guards ahead of us. "It's a chance to design women's clothing for a change" she only looked ahead and smiled. "But the day is rushing by so fast I wonder what my first project will be." She said smiling showing her white teeth now. They where perfectly straight and they brightened up her brown eyes.

Once we got to Paul's he sat me down on a soft and odd chair. "So the dress doesn't get damaged." He said while opening up a bag of hair tools. "So what will it be? Big hair or elegantly big or elegant?" he seemed to only smile at the elegant hair as would I. big hair didn't seem right for me and I didn't want to parade around looking like Marie Intranet. "elegant." I said with a smile and he smiled to. He started to softly tug at my hair and pull at other times. He seemed to mummer to himself babbling some none's about messy hair down and neat hair up then it was something along the lines of fix the part neatly fix he kept repeating fix time and time again. It came across my mind that he might have cod about hairstyles.

I sat there in the quite until he twisted the chair around reveling my elegant new style. It was beautiful breathtaking it marched the dress with so much precision every last detail noticeable without flaw. "Well?" he asked anxious leaning on the back of the chair. "I love it." I gasped out, turning my head to get every angle. "Good" he smiled and began to pack his utensils. I had though we were done for now until he unpacked a whole new bag with makeup brushes powders and eyeliners. I rolled my eyes and he only chuckled. "Doesn't worry I wont make you look like a clown?" He chuckled out holding his stomach. "It'll just look natural" he promised before he put a light brown powder on my cheek bones. I watched everything he used to mea sure it wasn't too much. Light eye shadow a light brown blush some lip stick mascara and he was done. My reflection did look natural as he promised. "You look like Christmas morning darling. now lets get you to the wedding." He chuckled as he held the door for me and the wedding dress woman Samantha as I heard was her name draped the same oversized trench coat over me and led me to a colossal building with stained glass windows and extremely large doors. The church. I guessed. All of a sudden the rush became too quick Samantha pulled off the coat and another woman handed me and bouquet of whit flowers. I heard the music begin inside then the double doors opened and the large crowd stood looking back at me.

I felt a pull of two small girls carrying my train; I swallowed hard and started my long walk down the blood red row of carpet. As the crowd fell behind me I heard an ohm and some awes as they noticed the elegant hair style mounted on my head. Paradise smiled in his black uniform. It wasn't a tuxedo though it was just as his usual attire except black and with a white leopard fur cape. Arrogant and extravagant at the same time it made me sick.

As I reached the altar the crowd sat with a sigh of relief. Paradise smiled at me and then we turned to the head priest Gifford as I came to know him. Paradise nodded his head once and then Gifford began the ceremonial oath that we had to be taking.

"We are gathered her today to join the love of king Paradise the 3rd and Somia Henrique." He began with a motion of his hands. "Do you Paradise take Somia as your wife in sickness and in health until death do you part?" "Idol" Paradise spat out prideful and straight. "Do you Somia take Paradise to be your husband in sickness and in health until death do you part?" my heart started to race pounding so hard I thought it might burst out of my chest. Paradise looked at me his eyes full of pride and there was only one thing I had to say. "I do" I finally spoke in a whisper. The whole church seemed to sigh a sigh of relief, but only if they knew that those words were for the departed then they would not be here today.

"You may kiss the bride." Gifford pronounced us with glee. Paradise closed his eyes puckered his lips and leaned forward to claim his prize. I got queasy for a moment before I leaned the other few degrees and pecked his lips slightly. The crowd clapped and cheered and I straightened back and he sighed grabbing my hand. We walked down the aisle then began to run pushing our way out the doors. My heels clucked down the steps and into the carriage. They didn't allow cars in Victorian, so the hoarsest did all the work.

Once inside the velvety interior it was quite awkward and most of all tempting. I was so close to what I wanted, it dangled on a thread in front of me. I bit my lower lip and closed my eyes I could imagine his death it would only take a few seconds for me to rip open his throat and pose it all as an horrible accident it would put him in a coffin and me on the thrown.

I tired to calm myself, I was so close to breaking point I could feel my insanity slipping away with each given second until the carriage came to a halt. As Paradise stepped out I gave a sigh of relief, the plan was safe for now at least.

I was relieved by more than the fact that I was able to hold off my revenge but also to the fact that even though we're married we sleep in separate rooms until a child is to be conceived. The only flick of that is that Paradise can't have children seeing as how he's half dead and all. I guess that's the highlight of being a pure blood you are still able to have children and that is one of the many reasons why it is frowned upon to love a lower class like I loved-. _Quiet_ An unknown voice spoke to me. I looked around but only the guard was there leading me to my royal suite.

_Hush now._ The voice called to me, it sounded like it was coming from very and any direction. "Did you say something?" I asked the guard and he turned giving me and look of insanity. "No my queen I did not speak." He was being so formal it almost shocked me but there was no one else here to talk. _Don't worry I am going to help you succeed in what you want. _It spoke again.

I thought of a way that I could talk back to it all I could manage was to think the words and so I tried. Who are you? I thought. _I'm a nameless existence._ The voice scared me, it was a bit scratchy and sounded like that of a dead witches voice. Just the sound of it gave me shivers running up my spine.

What can I call you? I asked the nameless existence or so it called itself._ You have come to know me as the Quiet._ The last word seemed to roll of the nameless tongue and my eyes grew wide. The Quiet? The world I had retreated to so many times? My sanctuary? It was speaking to me in this awful voice. How is it possible that this nameless thing is the quite? I became extremely flustered nervous and scared. How is it that you are the Quiet? I asked hoping for a reasonable answer. _I am your subconscious mind, the world you go to is only for your eyes you are the creator the puppet master. The Quiet revolves around you and its time to pay your dues._ With every word the Quiet spoke I became more and more frightened. I was talking to my self, and now my subconscious mind wants to trade places? Was that it? I was the puppet master the creator? And know it was time to par my dues?

I couldn't manage to figure it out the dues the creator all the words turning inside my head, I had to ask or I would never know. What are my Dues? _You must switch places when called to you will sleep and we will become the conscious mind and control your body until the time is replayed. _Time? How long exactly is the time to be repaid?_ Sixty six hours._ That's about three days. Could I manage for three days? No! I can't my revenge everything will go wrong! _We will be the conscious mind for six hours at a time until your time is played._ Six hours? That's ten times of sleep while the Quiet is doing god knows what with my body. I was a little much for my body, talking to this nameless thing.

"Ahem." The guard cleared his throat to capture my attention. I felt like I was going insane, my body was shaking fear ran through my veins. The gaud opened the suite door and I quivered inside. As soon as I had made it in the room he softly closed the door behind me.

I was scared, no more than that terrified that my own mind was speaking to me calling itself nameless. Most of all scared of the fact that it was the world I knew as the Quiet the world I visited so often, an know I must give them ten sets of six to do what ever they want's sat on the bed still in my wedding dress shaking violently.

I tried to clear my thoughts as I changed in to my night gown there wasn't much to chose from in my closet I would have to have Samantha make something suitable for a queen tomorrow. I had a million things running through my mind when I finally closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four Deaths Toll

Chapter four Deaths Toll

We had been running for about an hour now and we had caught up to Leah. I wasn't sure of how many he had brought or of how long we could fight but he found us and fast. We stopped now at the end of our trail, at a cliffs side the ocean crashing up against the rocks. "What now? We can't run forever." I cried confused dazed and most of all scared. "I know but we can't stay and face them there are so many." Her words were caught in the wind but I could still hear her. "I'm tired of running scared Leah we need to do something or we'll never be safe!" I cried into the wind tears streaming down my face hot and salty. "But how? How do you stop running scared from something your afraid of?" she was crying to now. I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to face the man himself, "Paradine." I glared twisting my mouth around his name. "Isn't it lovely the works of a little venom?" he purred into he howl of the wind. "It's against the law to bite a human, Paradine. You're a federal crime" Leah scowled at him her hair whipping viciously in the salty air.

"Yes but it's not against the law to inject yourself." He grinned happily. It took me about three seconds to understand and all that sadness went blank with anger. "You used Mary-Angela's dead venom to turn yourself?" I scowled growling at the name. He only smiled wider "you may be beautiful Paradine but you're a monster in my eyes!" Leah growled deep within her chest. I gritted my teeth, "disgusting" I managed to let out of the uncontrollable snarls in my chest.

He came forward and crouched down ready for attack, "if you won't marry me then no one can!" he growled the words and I crouched as well. We began moving in circles copying each others moves going from left to right in rhythmic patterns. I noticed that Leah and Ian had begun to fight Quilette still on the defense. My slight distraction gave Paradine the moment he needed and he crashed his stone shoulder into my chest pushing me over the cliffs edge. I grabbed the grassy rock side to keep from falling and began to pull myself up.

Ian threw a fist into a young vampires jaw and rushed to my aid. He reached out for my hand and pulled me up. My first sight of the fight was that Leah had set someone afire. The poor vampire was running wildly about. Ian grabbed my hand tightly, and then kissed my mouth with an scary tension to his lips. I didn't protest because I knew we were both in mortal danger. It scared me the way his lips moved against mine giving me so many unasked questions that I had no answer to.

I pulled away breathless and gazed deep into his brown eyes, he pulled me to him again but before our lips touched I could see Paradine out of the corner of my eye. His face flushed red with anger as he realized that I had found my one and only. I ignored his glare and crushed my lips to Ions knowing it could be the last time our lips touched. The salty air gave the hotness a kick and the kiss some power. My knees we getting week my head clouded with fantasy as his lips took over commanding mine. I ran my hands through his hair, as the rain came pouring down. I could still hear the screaming of the flaming boy the poor unfortunate soul.

Paradine had commanded someone with a deep snarl but I ignored it. Suddenly Ian was pulled away from my waiting lips. The rain was pouring down so hard I could only see about two feet in front of me, but that was enough to watch Ian and the flaming boy collide and fly into the mist. I ran toward the dim light the grass crunching beneath my feet. The rain was blinding as I stumbled toward the light that had disappeared. I slipped on cliff side grass tumbling over to be caught by Leah's hand around my wrist.

I was at the edge, the cliffs edge. I dangled in the pouring rain my mind mush. I began to cry and my chest started to hurt. "The cliff!" I cried out in pain. "Yes now let's pull you and Ian up." Leah shouted into the mist. "I don't-." My voice cracked off the sobs grew intense. "I don't have him Leah." I broke out weeping hard. "What?" she asked her voice panicky. "I didn't reach him Leah." I sobbed against the cliff side. "Has gone Leah has gone!" my chest was giving tight squeezes, a stabbing pain. In that instant I realized it was my heart hurting, and for the first time I had felt it deep in my chest.

I cried my tears disappearing in the rain, the stone cliff got colder and the world around me began to shift. I was panicking gasping for air my sobs cutting through me, my eye lids were getting heavier by the second. The world around me grew black and my body became week and limp. I shut my eyes and it all went quite.

The quite gave me a peace, an illus ional world something to get away to where everything was perfect. To some the quite may sound scary but to me the real sounded scary. I guess that was my coping point. The way I differed the two world the real world and my world the quite world where Ian was still here with me and I spent forever in his arms. The quite was a place where a kiss could last an eternity and an love could never die. It was my place my perfect place.

Maybe it was the crazy running through my veins or the sudden shift in the world I knew as the quite but my eye lids had gotten lighter and I felt my heart start to hurt once more. I lay there wherever I was, not caring just letting my heart hurt and my eyes stay closed. I couldn't think about anything else but him he was my world and for the short time we were together I was his. There wasn't anything I could do to make the pain go away but could I distract myself from it? No it wasn't possible to forget about a pain as deep as this, my mind was set on it and time was all I needed to heal.

It was so unreal like something in a movie, how someone could be taken from you like that. I ran through all the movies I had seen how people coped with the pain what was they're next move? Some moved away others used suicide; there was revenge and new lovers to fill the empty space. Wait revenge. In that instant my mind shot to the revenge cycle, most people give up or fail others get there revenge and end up dying in the end. But imp not human ill get my revenge, Paradine will die and I will take over his kingdom. My plan was perfect, if I followed it precisely it would work without a hitch.

First things first I had to sneak away from Leah, it would be hard but it's a sacrifice imp willing to make. I opened my eyes and found that I was in the bedroom of the last apartment we had recently run from. Leah wasn't here she must be grading the building from the outside. I walked over to my night stand and picked up a green picture frame. The picture was of Ian and me in front of the apartments in our school uniforms. It was the day we first got the apartment, we were smiling and joyful. I broke the frame in my hand and removed the picture. I started at it for a moment longer then folded it and shoved it in my jacket pocket.

I was still in my school uniform like it matter. There was no attire for revenge and taking over a kingdom so why change?

I slid open my bedroom window slowly inch by inch. When the gap was large enough for me to fit through. I slipped out grabbing the side of the building. If I just jumped out it would make a noise loud enough for Leah to hear. I quickly and quietly scaled down the wall careful not to slip until my feet reached the ground. The grass was still wet from the night of rain and the ground was very muddy in some places. I didn't know where to start or witch direction to go in I just took off on instinct alone.

I guessed it would take an hour maybe more to reach the city I could sneak in the same way I sneaked out. I had to suppress the memory of Ian as long as possible if I were to get my revenge. But if I sneaked in I would have more a chance to get caught, then if I wanted to get caught.

I smiled wickedly to myself relishing the perfect way to get so close to Paradine that no one would notice my scheme. I had to marry him. The well thought out plan played like a movie in my head and when that movie was over I had reached Victorian.

I stood in front of the wall for an hour maybe more waiting for them to realize that I was there but no one came nothing happened and I knew I had to open the gate myself. I folded my hands together and recited some words, but instead of the mahogany gate and arch shaped light appeared. I stood there for a moment departing to myself and then walked blindly forward into the light. I exited out the same way the last time I had come here, in the middle of the city in front of the white fairytale castle. I didn't hesitate I just walked forward with confidence eager to get the plan in motion. I climbed the many steps and reached the hideous door with Paradises face on it. I winced away from the image as I pulled the door open. Inside was the same the blooded and many paintings portraits and sculptors of me. Obsession can drive a man insane. I hurried through to the next door not looking at the many familiar faces and entered the thrown room, where Paradine himself was plopped on the oversized chair his head mounted on his cheek.

As soon as he caught glimpse of me he jumped to his feet and rushes over stopping five feet away." this is an unexpected surprise." He murmured. "I would have never guessed you'd come back to me let alone the city." Hi smiled his teeth glistening in the light. "I know, a month ago neither would I." I smiled my best lusty smile to put on a good show. "Why" he paused "is it that you came back may I ask." His face became bewildered. "I have finally realized my lord." I would never call him lord but this is an exception. He nodded for me to continue, "That you are my only need and that I hope you will forgive my childlike behavior." I bowed at his feet and almost gagged. "I thought so" he smiled a crooked smile as he kneeled in front of me. "This is the last time I will ever ask you Somia." He said his honey voice sounding like a growl in my ears. He lifted my head with his hand and gazed into my eyes as I into his. All I could see was shallow waters twisted into blue.

"Somia Hen ridge, will you marry me?" I wanted to gag and yell no in his face but for the plan to succeed I had only one choice. "Yes" I whispered and he let go of my face. We both stood together him taking my hand and smiling to our audience. "Send out invitations there is to be a wedding" he howled smiling from ear to ear. The room applauded us and he called a woman over. He whispered in her ear she nodded then grabbed me by the wrist. "Come with me miss" she spoke in a soft voice as she pulled me along.

She took me to a bridal shop full of white gowns and long silky gloves, but instead of the display gowns she led me to the back of the shop where a beautiful puffy white wedding gown was on a revolving mantle. "Do you like it?" she asked walking over to the piece and adjusting the material. "Yes" I awed breathless. It's the exact dress I would picture myself wearing if I had been able to marry-. Never mind I thought gathering my emotions. "Paradine requested the design he said it would look right on you." She smiled at the word. Right. It would look right on me? "You don't think so?" she asked I shrugged my shoulders. She smiled "threes only one way to find out" she said with great enthusiasm as she carefully pulled the dress off the mantle and placed it in my arms.

"Try it on" she smiled wider and then left the room skipping. I shook my head and undressed. I pulled the dress on then called for her. "Yes" she said poking her head into the room. "Can you get the back for me?" I asked turning around then looking over my shoulder at her. She buttoned my up and pushed me in front of the mirror. "Oh" was all I managed. The reflection was not one I recognized though it was breath taking. "What do you think? He'll love it right?" she asked tailoring the bottom of the gown with pins in her mouth. "Yes he will." I answered still in awe. I would have never pictured my self her in the scene I was in, not in all my wildest dreams would I imagine that I would marry Paradine even if for a short moment.

"alright." She gasped standing on her feet. "Let's get you over to Paul. She said with a smile. "Why whets Paul going to do?" I asked suddenly flustered. "Your hair and makeup silly." She laughed then pushed me out into the main shop where she covered me with a very large trench coat that covered the whole dress. "Let's go." She squealed in excitement and pushed me toward the door.

When out side there was a crowd of young woman and men. The woman squealed whispering to each other, "Why did she suddenly have this change of heart?" one whispered. "I wish I was fit to marry the king" another whispered. The men just stood there rubbing their chins as we passed by giving each other quick glances. I bowed my head looking straight to the ground. I left my sister for this? I wanted revenge through this? Does revenge really feel like this? A million questions started running through my head making it impossible to think.

I sorted through every wonder one by one until there were none left and I was able to breathe easy again. "Don't worry they wont talk for long soon you'll be queen!" the said the women who had given me the dress. She in particular was excited and unusually kind about this all. "Why are you so different?" I asked straighten my head up to look at her. "What do you mean?" she said tiling her head slightly to the side. "well everyone else is criticizing this wedding and talking gossip what about you why are you so nice?" she smile wide and her cheeks became rosey.she laugh a little and turned her head forward her long curly hair fastened in a bun. "Well you see it's not so hard to be nice when threes all a sudden joy around you." She smiled again her face seemed to glow. "What I mean is I am a royal clothes designer and my entire job up until now has been for is to make Paradine's clothes and some guard uniforms." She explained eyeing the guards ahead of us. "It's a chance to design women's clothing for a change" she only looked ahead and smiled. "But the day is rushing by so fast I wonder what my first project will be." She said smiling showing her white teeth now. They where perfectly straight and they brightened up her brown eyes.

Once we got to Paul's he sat me down on a soft and odd chair. "So the dress doesn't get damaged." He said while opening up a bag of hair tools. "So what will it be? Big hair or elegantly big or elegant?" he seemed to only smile at the elegant hair as would I. big hair didn't seem right for me and I didn't want to parade around looking like Marie Intranet. "elegant." I said with a smile and he smiled to. He started to softly tug at my hair and pull at other times. He seemed to mummer to himself babbling some none's about messy hair down and neat hair up then it was something along the lines of fix the part neatly fix he kept repeating fix time and time again. It came across my mind that he might have cod about hairstyles.

I sat there in the quite until he twisted the chair around reveling my elegant new style. It was beautiful breathtaking it marched the dress with so much precision every last detail noticeable without flaw. "Well?" he asked anxious leaning on the back of the chair. "I love it." I gasped out, turning my head to get every angle. "Good" he smiled and began to pack his utensils. I had though we were done for now until he unpacked a whole new bag with makeup brushes powders and eyeliners. I rolled my eyes and he only chuckled. "Doesn't worry I wont make you look like a clown?" He chuckled out holding his stomach. "It'll just look natural" he promised before he put a light brown powder on my cheek bones. I watched everything he used to mea sure it wasn't too much. Light eye shadow a light brown blush some lip stick mascara and he was done. My reflection did look natural as he promised. "You look like Christmas morning darling. now lets get you to the wedding." He chuckled as he held the door for me and the wedding dress woman Samantha as I heard was her name draped the same oversized trench coat over me and led me to a colossal building with stained glass windows and extremely large doors. The church. I guessed. All of a sudden the rush became too quick Samantha pulled off the coat and another woman handed me and bouquet of whit flowers. I heard the music begin inside then the double doors opened and the large crowd stood looking back at me.

I felt a pull of two small girls carrying my train; I swallowed hard and started my long walk down the blood red row of carpet. As the crowd fell behind me I heard an ohm and some awes as they noticed the elegant hair style mounted on my head. Paradise smiled in his black uniform. It wasn't a tuxedo though it was just as his usual attire except black and with a white leopard fur cape. Arrogant and extravagant at the same time it made me sick.

As I reached the altar the crowd sat with a sigh of relief. Paradise smiled at me and then we turned to the head priest Gifford as I came to know him. Paradise nodded his head once and then Gifford began the ceremonial oath that we had to be taking.

"We are gathered her today to join the love of king Paradise the 3rd and Somia Henrique." He began with a motion of his hands. "Do you Paradise take Somia as your wife in sickness and in health until death do you part?" "Idol" Paradise spat out prideful and straight. "Do you Somia take Paradise to be your husband in sickness and in health until death do you part?" my heart started to race pounding so hard I thought it might burst out of my chest. Paradise looked at me his eyes full of pride and there was only one thing I had to say. "I do" I finally spoke in a whisper. The whole church seemed to sigh a sigh of relief, but only if they knew that those words were for the departed then they would not be here today.

"You may kiss the bride." Gifford pronounced us with glee. Paradise closed his eyes puckered his lips and leaned forward to claim his prize. I got queasy for a moment before I leaned the other few degrees and pecked his lips slightly. The crowd clapped and cheered and I straightened back and he sighed grabbing my hand. We walked down the aisle then began to run pushing our way out the doors. My heels clucked down the steps and into the carriage. They didn't allow cars in Victorian, so the hoarsest did all the work.

Once inside the velvety interior it was quite awkward and most of all tempting. I was so close to what I wanted, it dangled on a thread in front of me. I bit my lower lip and closed my eyes I could imagine his death it would only take a few seconds for me to rip open his throat and pose it all as an horrible accident it would put him in a coffin and me on the thrown.

I tired to calm myself, I was so close to breaking point I could feel my insanity slipping away with each given second until the carriage came to a halt. As Paradise stepped out I gave a sigh of relief, the plan was safe for now at least.

I was relieved by more than the fact that I was able to hold off my revenge but also to the fact that even though we're married we sleep in separate rooms until a child is to be conceived. The only flick of that is that Paradise can't have children seeing as how he's half dead and all. I guess that's the highlight of being a pure blood you are still able to have children and that is one of the many reasons why it is frowned upon to love a lower class like I loved-. _Quiet_ An unknown voice spoke to me. I looked around but only the guard was there leading me to my royal suite.

_Hush now._ The voice called to me, it sounded like it was coming from very and any direction. "Did you say something?" I asked the guard and he turned giving me and look of insanity. "No my queen I did not speak." He was being so formal it almost shocked me but there was no one else here to talk. _Don't worry I am going to help you succeed in what you want. _It spoke again.

I thought of a way that I could talk back to it all I could manage was to think the words and so I tried. Who are you? I thought. _I'm a nameless existence._ The voice scared me, it was a bit scratchy and sounded like that of a dead witches voice. Just the sound of it gave me shivers running up my spine.

What can I call you? I asked the nameless existence or so it called itself._ You have come to know me as the Quiet._ The last word seemed to roll of the nameless tongue and my eyes grew wide. The Quiet? The world I had retreated to so many times? My sanctuary? It was speaking to me in this awful voice. How is it possible that this nameless thing is the quite? I became extremely flustered nervous and scared. How is it that you are the Quiet? I asked hoping for a reasonable answer. _I am your subconscious mind, the world you go to is only for your eyes you are the creator the puppet master. The Quiet revolves around you and its time to pay your dues._ With every word the Quiet spoke I became more and more frightened. I was talking to my self, and now my subconscious mind wants to trade places? Was that it? I was the puppet master the creator? And know it was time to par my dues?

I couldn't manage to figure it out the dues the creator all the words turning inside my head, I had to ask or I would never know. What are my Dues? _You must switch places when called to you will sleep and we will become the conscious mind and control your body until the time is replayed. _Time? How long exactly is the time to be repaid?_ Sixty six hours._ That's about three days. Could I manage for three days? No! I can't my revenge everything will go wrong! _We will be the conscious mind for six hours at a time until your time is played._ Six hours? That's ten times of sleep while the Quiet is doing god knows what with my body. I was a little much for my body, talking to this nameless thing.

"Ahem." The guard cleared his throat to capture my attention. I felt like I was going insane, my body was shaking fear ran through my veins. The gaud opened the suite door and I quivered inside. As soon as I had made it in the room he softly closed the door behind me.

I was scared, no more than that terrified that my own mind was speaking to me calling itself nameless. Most of all scared of the fact that it was the world I knew as the Quiet the world I visited so often, an know I must give them ten sets of six to do what ever they want's sat on the bed still in my wedding dress shaking violently.

I tried to clear my thoughts as I changed in to my night gown there wasn't much to chose from in my closet I would have to have Samantha make something suitable for a queen tomorrow. I had a million things running through my mind when I finally closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter five The Quite

Chapter five The Quite

I awoke, sweat staining my night gown. To anyone else my dream would have been a pleasant one but to me it was another story. I had dreamed about him. About what we would have had if he did not d-. _Hush._ The Quiet spoke and I immediately cradled my head in between my legs and clapped my hands over my ears as if to silence the Quiet. _It's for your own good._ The Quiet spoke. "How do you know whets well for me?" I pained out. _It hurts you._ It spoke again._ To think of him even his name cuts you heart._"Stop it" I whispered in pain. The Quiet was only making things worse now. _It's intriguing. _"What?" I asked in disbelief cringing away from the scratchy sound ringing in my ears. _How delicate your heart is, like humans it is._ "My heart?" I was angry now, angry that I could talk about my self like this. I really wished this voice would shut up! It was driving me to the point of insanity._ Yes your heart, so kind that of a humans._ "No- stops! Stop it!" the Quiet was so alluring but alarming at the same time.

_You're a pure blood so start acting like it!_ The Quiet screamed bloody murder inside my head. "STOP!" I shouted in pain. The Quiet. I didn't understand how it could hurt someone like this. Hurt after helping. It didn't seem right.

The thoughts about the Quiet began to fade as a lullaby sung inside my head. _Rest now precious rest my honey._ It was not the voice of the Quiet that much I was sure, because the lullaby voice was sweet like honey and kind like that of a mother's voice. It infect sounded like my mothers voice, as did the lullaby she would sing to me every night. I would then dream a sweet dream, the sweetest of all the dreams in a peace that no one could know._ Let your dreams run as free as the wind let your eyes rest now my precious my honey. _I felt my thoughts go dizzy and my mind became a blur. I couldn't see an inch in front of me and I began to tremble. "Guard" I tried to call but my voice was strained and hoarse. My heart ached and I began to dream of him.

The dream was so real and yet so heart ranching. Every second I felt like my heart might explode out of my chest. "It's so good to see you" he spoke into my ear as he rapped his arms around me and I began to sob. Softly though at first then the tears came pouring like rain.

"Hush now" I stopped crying. Hush now? Where had I heard that before? "Hush my honey" he continued. Those words sounded so familiar but for some reason or another I couldn't put my finger on it. "Hush rest now precious. It hit me like a brick. Those aren't Ian's words there the Quiets!

The Quiet was taking its first six of ten payment time. I began to Quiver shaking horrendously uncontrollable. The thought of the Quiet doing all it pleased no stings attached. Suddenly the dream became a nightmare, sirens went off darkness creped in and the world around was blackened. I stood my knees getting weak and my mind petrified. Over the hill there was a very large mass moving toward me, the mass was a blur it was moving so fast. It was so far away that I couldn't make out the different shapes that made up the blob.

My knees shook violently and I stumbled to the ground. The mass. There was nothing ordinary about the blob. There were monsters here, and as soon as I realized that the blob rushing toward me was infect a mass of hundreds of monsters I froze. My feet wouldn't move, my breathing increased rapidly. Move! My brain screamed at me. Get up! I tried to stand as my legs wobbled beneath me. Run! My mind screamed. "I can't" I cried tears streaming down my face.

"Come on don't just sit there!" that voice. I recognized that voice. It was Samantha's voice. The girl I rescued from the cage. She was running toward me in the Quiet. "Come on move!" she screamed at me in the howl of the wind. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Hurry!" she pulled me toward the mass of monsters and I caught a clear view as they came closer. Monsters in human form with claws, scales, swords, and all kinds of weapons I had never seen in all my life. "No!" I gasped out pulling her toward the opposite direction. "They're coming from that way to!" she howled in to the wind her words lost. I could see them the hordes coming from every side; there was no wear to run.

"Come on!" she screamed and pulled me the same as before. "No." I tried to gasp against the wind. The grassy ground turned to sand beneath our feet as we ran. "Samantha!" I screamed as the sand seemed to grab hold of my ankles. We were sinking. The sand was taking us in! "Sa-" my scream was lost in the wind. "Don't fight the sand Somia!" she screamed louder than before to match the pitch of the wind. "What?" I gasped out in between screams. I was frantic like a fish out of water. I didn't stop screaming until my head was submerged in sand. Even then I would have screamed if the sand didn't get into my mouth.

The pulling on my ankles didn't stop and I could no longer see Samantha. The sand was strange the colors seemed to change around me. First the normal golden crisp color and then red. Next it was a dark orange and then a red brown. I was pulled out through the bottom of the sand and this time I could tell that it wasn't by sand or monster but by hands. Could it be Samantha? I didn't know not even when I finally fell to the ground. It was to dark almost pitching black. I didn't realize my night vision wasn't working or that I couldn't run fast enough to get away.

The room filled with light as candles were lit, and I could see the sand swirling above me. "How much longer?" women asked. "Five seconds." A man replied. I didn't see them I only saw the sand as I lay there facing up.

"Samantha, I see you've brought a guest." An older man smiled glee fully. "Whets her name?" he continued. Samantha reached out and pulled me up off the stony floor, "her name is Somia and she's a pure blood." She smiled flashing her white teeth. Everyone gasped in astonishment. "Pure blood? Is this the truth?" I guessed that he was directing the question at me "yes" I answered in a normal tone. I had to guess that pure bloods were dill considered far more super to the level two common vampires I saw gasping before me.

"Samantha, do you know what this means?" the older paper thin man suggested gesturing towards me with a nod of his head. "The overcast." She whispered. "Wait whets the over cast and how in all insanity are you all ere with me I mean this must be a dream." I started going off absurdly. Everyone looked up at me or at least the ones who weren't staring. "We're all in the world brought by the same kind." Women in the back finally spoke through the unbearable silence. She was tall wearing a dark dark purple cloak with the hood up. A stand of her bright blond hair seeped out across her shoulder.

"What?" I asked in sudden confusion. "The monsters the voices the time to pay back. It's all of the same kind." She spoke noble and proud coming forward through the small group of level two vampires. She stopped in front of me and pulled down her hood. Her crimson eyes glistened in the candle light, and her hair fell out of the hood draping almost too the floor.

"We are all being taken over by the same species." She continued. "There's no way to stop it and nothing we level two vampires can do no matter how strong." She spoke with such urgency to her voice it almost scared me. "Then what is so special about the sand?" I asked one of my many questions. She smiled her face like that of mothers with the glow of honey. "This patch of sand is the only thing protecting us." She pointed up to the calling where I had fallen. I looked up with everyone else and saw that the sand had hardened into stone. "What? It was sand a minute ago." I said flustered. Of course that was how I was feeling everything in this world was confusing and all so complicated.

"The sand acts as a shelter for us." She went on to explain the works. "We all run her after gathering supplies if needed then we simply sink in the sand. She smiled at me and I became very confused. "But we didn't see you sink when we sunk either, and the sand had just turned." It was a mystery but soon to be solved. "There is more than one sand pit dear, there are many infect. We just stay near one and run to it as quickly as possible no time for silly dreams." I blushed with embarrassment as I knew I was one for the silly dreams.

"Don't be ashamed." Her sweet voice hummed. "We all get caught from time to time." She smiled the sweet honey smile once again. "That's right the lullaby puts you in a trance and you have to claw you way out." A man against a wall chimed with a chuckle. The embarrassment faded away and the room went quiet for a moment.

"How do we get out of this room?" I asked after thinking it through. "I mean we don't have our strength or the fast running skill, how do we do anything here?" They all laughed a chorus chime. "The stone will be sand again soon enough when the monsters have passed." Her sweet summer voice reminded me of my mothers. "I bet your wondering whets so special about you. Huh?" Samantha asked pointing one pale finger at me... "Well" I took a pause "yes sort" she smiled. "You are one of the last pure bloods and we are all people driven to the edge of insanity." She pointed out the obvious and I looked around to capture every face. " we all have our name's for this world that at first was a safe zone for us all, then the world began to talk to us and we all got the lullabies our parents use to sing us and ended up in the dream state." She walked around the room explaining.

"All of our dreams used the thing we lost that pushed us here. Joyce means to say that the same species is whets causing the terror." She pointed her pale little finger in her direction this time. The blond honey sweet women smiled. "It's not so much our subconscious mind that's taking us over, it's an demon that needs to Rome the earth in and human like form." She set her hand on a mans shoulder. "But they can't take over humans." She continued. "The lord protects them." She sighed and I guessed it was a sigh of be trial. "They need a stronger vessel and a less breakable being that can withstand many things." She said looking around the room eyeing each face until she came to mine. "us." She finished.

"How many sets of six do your nameless have?" the old paper thin man asked. "ten." I answered still looking intent at Samantha, and her eyes still wide on me. "No much time." The paper man sighed. "Time for what?" I asked confused for the hundredth time today. "We have been waiting for some one to save us. He started on his story now. "We are all trapped here and can never return to our bodies." His scratchy voice cut off. "What do you need me for?" I wondered aloud. "You are the only on who can go back." Joyce spoke out in her honey mother's voice. "And you're the only one strong enough as well" Samantha added with a single nod or her head. "When you go back you need to find our bodies and shove one of these into our chest." Joyce explained coming forward with a small white paper envelope. "There ceremonial crystals." She continued. "They contain a special and very rare mineral that can only be found in this world." She poured out the crystals in one hand and held the paper envelope in the other.

"Threes one and only one crystal for each of us so be careful when handling them." She set down the envelope and fingered through the crystals counting them. "Just remember the oldest of the sayings." She continued stepping forward as she poured the crystals back into the paper envelope. "Greed will imprison us all." Her voice shifted as so did the atmosphere of the room, it all became grave silent awkward. She set the tiny envelope in my hand and closed my fingers around it. "Good luck." She whispered. I looked all around the room at every face, and they seemed to blur. I didn't know if it was a dizzy spell or the pressure to remember all of them in such short time. It didn't take long for my body to get hot and my knees to wobble. I fell to the floor with a sharp thud, my hand still tightly gripping the small white envelope as it all went black.

I awoke continently in my bed dressed in a new night gown with the feeling of a new day. The six hours where over for the time being. I wondered what the Quiet had done and I seemed to realize it a little slower than I should have. It was right in-between my nose as I looked al around my room eyeing all the new clothes sparkly dresses and makeup kits that had been bought under my name. "Great" I sighed and clamed out of bed.

I waddled over to my closet with one stiff leg and opened the double doors. Inside was a whole new wardrobe of beautiful dresses and shoes handbags and ribbons. I amazed me how much could be bought in only a few hours but at least I knew that nothing bad happened. I grabbed a light blue and white dress and slipped into it in little time. I then rushed down stairs and found my way to the grand hall where my thrown awaited my arrival. The moment I walked through the doors and sat on that fluffy soft over sized chair the questions came.

One small girl walked cautiously up to my feet and bowed her head. "Our house burned down and we have nowhere to live what shall we do?" the little girl sprang tears as her plead was finished. I would have cried as well if I was not the queen, but instead of weeping my tears I had to give advice or turn her away. What good would a couple words do? I knew what I had to say. "guard." I called and the little girl cringed. "Yes your majesty?" he asked with such politeness. "Gather workers supplies and follow this young one to the site where her new house shall be built. I announced proudly and the girls face lit up like the starry sky. "Yes your majesty." "And I will send someone to inspect the building of the house to make sure you don't slack." I treed to say my order in a harsh voice and I think I did pretty well myself. "Yes your majesty." The guard continued to suck up. "That is all" I waved him away with a swift movement of my hand and he bowed and left with the young girl.

There were so many unfortunate people waiting for advice and help I began to get tired of the same stories and the same pleads. There where so many and so little time I couldn't help them all. There were farmers whose crops were destroyed and mothers who had ill children but could not afford a doctor. People who had debt and people who had no where to go. The stories got sadder and the sadness cut deep.

I set a few doctors to the side to help the sick, and ordered a few servants to build a homeless shelter. I commanded some to help the farmers replant their crop and others to help people find a job. By the end of the day I was exhausted.

I walked quietly to my room and dressed for bed. I layer down and began to read a rather old document about the queen's rights. It didn't seem fair that the king had more power. But that was the way it was in a mans world, I would just have to make it a women's world I thought to myself.

_Yes a women's world together we could make this a women's world._ The Quiet spoke. _I can help you succeed. I can help you plan; I am very good with schemes._ The Quiet seemed to laugh on the last word and I cringed away from the scratchy sound. "You want to help me?" I asked astounded. I thought the Quiet was evil and completely different from what I was feeling now. _Yes after all it is time the tides changed isn't it? Men always think to be so powerful and they're not._ The Quiet giggled and the laugh sounded sweeter than before. It seemed to clear up the scratchy cracks and the witch tone. A sweet honey alluring voice poured into my mind and swept a sweet felling over my entire body.

_We can do it together trust me. With our powers and your title we can take revenge and change the world that we came to hate._ "Revenge? The revenge was mine not ours." I growled the words out._ Of course it will be your revenge just think of me as a helper. _The honey voice drew me closer and closer, my mind eased into the thought. _With the crystals we could gain power as well._ When the Quiet spoke of the crystals I felt a tick in my head go off. I didn't remember what I was supposed to do with them or how I got them but something told me that they weren't good for the Quiet. "Won't they hurt you?" I asked following my instincts_. Yes if we don't properly use them properly._ In that split second that that one sentence was spoken I felt all my questions and worries disappear into the warm honey voice that pulled me closer.

I set the paper envelope in the night stand drawer next to my bedside, then turned out the lamp and pulled the covers up over my ears. My eyes drooped and I let them close and soon I entered the dream that I call a night mare. The one dream I have dreamt for the past couple of weeks since his death. I let my block go and thought the one thing that I feared to think. Ian.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter six Betrayal

Chapter six Betrayal

I woke up already regretting the thought of his name even aloud in my dreams; it tormented me even though the nightmare was so sweet. I stared at the calling for a moment trying to rebuild my restrains. I lifted the covers off my body and felt the rush of cold air. I let my bare feet touch the ground and cringed away, it was freezing. I grabbed my robe and walked over to my only window, when I peered into the court yard there was nothing but bright white glinting snow. It was winter. "So soon?" I thought a little smug. Winter was my favorite time of the year. The beautiful snow the presents and family, all the decorations and the Christmas tree's glowing with lights and tinsel. It gave me a warm feeling inside.

I walled out of the bedroom into the bitter cold hall. I walked to the right seeing every breath I took and let out. I placed my hand on the icy cold knob of the room that contained all my old belongings, the room we we're locked in before our escape. I turned the knob with a crack and a long groan and pushed the door open with a few creeks. I walked inside and smiled to myself, it was just as we left it. I found Leah's old doll lying limp on the floor, she must have dropped it when we escaped. Or at least I thought. I picked it up with one hand and felt the cold shiny black button eyes with the other. I hugged it to my body and then slowly walked out of the room.

I went back to my room in a bit of a hurry and laid the old rag doll on my bed. Then I went to my dresser and opened the bottom drawer. I pulled out some wrapping paper scissors and ribbon. I rolled the shiny gold paper on the floor and grabbed Leah's old doll. I put the rag doll in the center of the paper and grabbed a shoe box from my closet. I put the doll inside the box and closed it shut. I out the shoe box in the middle of the paper and began to wrap the shoe box.

In flipped it over and pulled out the red ribbon, I wrapped it around the box vertical first then horizontal. I tied it in a bow at the center. I took a sticker name tag and carefully placed it on the gold wrapping. I took a black pen and wrote Leah in elegant letters on the whit tag. I walked out into the grand hall with the shoe box tucked carefully under my arm.

When I reached the grand hall the servants had all ready set up a giant Christmas tree decorated with tinsel and glass bulbs, with one beautiful parceling angle on top. I smiled to myself as I walked over and set the very first present under the tree. I positioned it carefully up right.

"Our first little present under our tall tree? Who is it for?" Paradine voice startled me as I gazed at the beautiful box with the red ribbon and gold wrapping. "It's for Leah if she ever decides to come." I mentioned a bit under my breath. "Oh" he seemed to gasp a sigh of disappointment. I could tell he didn't want Leah to come and I was sure she wouldn't it was more a just in case and just to be there and look pretty present.

Paradine whistled motioning for someone to come in, but it wasn't one person it was many carrying many presents perfectly warped in gold green red and silver all tied with colored ribbon fastened into colored bows. "Under the tree." He ordered in a stern voice, and the servants began to carefully place each present big small and medium under the tree. I grabbed my present for Leah and stepped back to let them have space. When I thought they were done I stepped forward to put my present the smallest on top but I had to pick it up and step back once more to let more servants with more presents step in. I realized that the reason the tree was in the furthest least decorated corner was because the presents would reach out too far for it to be in the center of the room. I quickly placed Leah's present on the top of one of the boxes and crossed my arms and stepped away. "there." I said triumphant. I stood by Paradine in front of the tree and gazed at the gleaming wonder that was ours. It was hard to believe I could be happy here standing next to this prick but I was and for once I didn't want to end it all for him. I was happy maybe it was the winter air or the glittering tinsel but I wanted to stay like this.

_Are you mad?_ I heard the Quiets honey voice turn somewhat to the scratchy sound it had been before. _We're to close for you to throw this away._ Imp happy I thought back at the Quiet, this is how I wanted to live my life. With someone imp happy with._ You fool_. The Quiet spat out at me its voice breaking._ This man is the one who took that from you, how can you expect to live haply with him. Did you forget that he killed your beloved I-._ Don't! I suddenly thought out in an exempt to stop the name I knew would give me so much pain just to think it. _He stole him from you and now's your chance to get even._ The voice became that alluring honey smooth sound that it had before. "I need to go does something ill be back!" I shouted running to my room, each word coming out with a pause.

I ran down the icy hall, my dress tugging under my feet as I stumbled with it. I reached my door twisted the knob and flung myself inside. I jumped for the night stand drawer and grabbed the tiny white envelope. I opened it and poured out the crystals into my palm. They seemed to shine glittering in the palm of my hand glowing like the frosty snow that now covered the court yard.

_You are playing wit fire._ The Quiet seemed to glare out of its teeth. I imagined what the Quiet would look like, if it had a true form. A shape shifter maybe one who went from the sweet honey warm image of a mother with long golden bright hair and pinch pink rosy cheeks. The soft honey smooth voice and kindness only a mother could have. When the Quiet switched I could picture a monster with its scratchy voice and sharp jagged teeth. Crimson eyes and long sharp finger nails that haven't been cleaned in years. A few black as night hairs starting to turn gray and old wrinkly skin with millions of blemishes and brown spots all over the surface. This image scared me the yellow tooth smile and the upward winkles as it tried to pall me closer, I only wanted to pull further away.

The only thing at the moment I could picture in my mind was the sweet honey mother image glowing wildly like a star in the night sky.

_You wouldn't destroy me after all I've done for you know would you?_ The voice drew me closer and I found myself fighting to shove the crystals into my chest. My hand was wildly out of control pulling closer to my chest then further away, I fought for second's minutes even before I dropped the crystals in exhaustion.

Was there anyway I could defeat the temptations the Quiet gave?_ No._ it answered back. My eyebrows crunched down and I gave a sulky expression. "I wasn't asking you!" I whisper under my breath._ No, but it was a simple answer anyhow._ What do you want now? I was happy you can't just let me be?_ No. it's time for your second set of ten._ I sighed then rose to lie on the bed. Before I set foot on it I gave it a look of disgust, it was all mudded up the covers half off the mattress and the pillows clumped together. I neatly replaced the blankets folding the first flap back then placed the pillows along the headboard neatly and perfect. I hoisted myself on to the bed and laid my head on the perfectly fluffed pillow. "Okay, ready" I sighed out and closed my eyes. The lullaby came swiftly this time like water in an unusually calm river.

The lullaby grew louder and softer the more I listened it sounded like an undiscovered birds sweet sensational humming, a humming that gives you tingles all over your body. The humming that droops your eyes and forces them shut, but I had already closed my eyes so the sleep came easier this time. The humming disappeared and the world around went black, I still felt conscious and fully aware of where I was that part was different from the last time.

When I arrived in the dream world of course Ian was there and I knew I had to fight temptaion.when he tried to kiss me I pushed him away with my right hand... he fell back and when the Quiet knew that I was fighting back it sounded the sirens the same ones as before. The monsters started marching and the world turned black I could see the patch of sand just a couple yards away.

I ran with all the strength I had, witch didn't seem like much. I ran thrusting my legs over there unusual limit, I could feel pain seeping into my veins as I pushed ahead breathless and weak. This was what it was like to be human? So breakable and easily warn out, pain came so easily to the body and the limits where so low. I couldn't imagine being this way all my life.

I refocused as I stomped into the sand patch and let it take me down. I could feel the same tugging on my ankles as before and I just relaxed letting it pull me faster. I saw Samantha running toward the patch and I flung my hand out toward her. She caught it and jumped forward as I pulled her in besides me. She let the sand take her down as well and soon we were both falling to the stone floor. I landed on my feet, hissing pain creaking through my ankles from the impact.

"insane." I muttered under my breath and the whole room chuckled and laughed. "You get use to it." The old man replied to my comment. "Have you found anyone yet?" a women with short brown hair asked spreading her hands. "No" I said standing up right. "I haven't been able to leave the castle." I continued after my short pause. They all gave a look of disappointment and sighed.

"What?" I asked angrily, "it's been one day give me sometime!" I growled giving off a mean streak. "You have a smudge." The old man sighed. I gave him a dirty scowled and sat on the thrown in the room I guessed it was mine. "A what?" I asked in a growl. "A Smudge my dear." Joyce answered coming forward. "He means that the demon has your bleeding on there side, in other words the smudge." She explianed gazing into my eyes. "There side?" I asked acting confused. I began to polish my nails, and cross my legs acting super to them all. "The demon has promised to help with something you want maybe?" she asked with her hands out towards me. I lifted my nose in the air and spat out "maybe' with a little snootiness to the word.

"What ever it is the demon has promised we can help with a hundred times over." She pleaded now on her knees. : don't bow to her" Samantha growled. She put her hand on Joyce's shoulder and pulled her up. "What else am I to do she is our only hope." She argued with her. "she may be but I'd rather be here than kiss the feet of some power hungry pure blood want to be Queen!" she insulted me and my pride. "Want to be?" I shouted. "I am no want to be I am queen." I stood from the thrown, angry and insulted. "Yeah? Of what country?" she shot back not expecting replies. "Of Victorian." I said proud and triumphant. Her mouth dropped open, and every one looked confused. They had no idea of what we were talking about.

"You sold out?" she asked with certain sadness to her voice. "Yes and for a good reason to!" I growled at her. She had no idea of what had happened after we split up. I recalled the memory with a stabbing pain in my heart. "What is it child?" Joyce asked her long gown flowing wit her motions. I felt a salty tear roll down my cheek "he's gone" I whispered and they all gave a look of confusion. "Who?" Samantha asked with sudden worried. "He's gone, Samantha." I choked out again. "Who? Who's gone?" she asked. I fell to the ground y eyes overflowing with salty water and my body choking out sobs. "Ian" I managed to gasp through the uncontrolled able bursts of tears and cries.

"Oh" she gasped and rushes to my side. "Imp so sorry" she said hugging me tight. Everything was coming back the rainy night the chase and the cliff. I could hear his screams echoing inside my head. I clasped my hands over my ears as I treed to stop the pain from leaking into my body. It was toxic. Love. All it ever did was break my world shattering it into a million pieces. Even after putting every tiny piece back together it becomes so fragile.

"What happened?" she asked her arms closing around me tighter than before. "He fell" I gasped out still trying to forget the pain. "The cliff, Paradine-" I sobbed again cutting off my sentence. "What did he do to Ian? What did he do!" she was angry now, I have never seen her this way. Her brows crunched together and her voice grew louder in volume. "He pushed him off and-" I took a pause to try and stop sobbing it failed soon. "-and he never came back, never!" my voice was but an urgent whisper now as I drowned in my sobs. She patted my back and I could feel everyone's eyes staring at us both waiting for more maybe even a detail if they were lucky. No. I couldn't speak it in detail it might kill me. Or so I feared.

"You want revenge yes?" Joyce asked holding out her hand to me. I grabbed it eagerly shaking with sobs. She pulled me towards her and embraced me like my mother had when I would cry just the same. "Yes" I sighed out of sobs. She hugged me tighter and kissed my head just like a mother would. "That's why you married him yes?" she asked her questions in such a peculiar way always ending them with a yes? Her voice captured you and you had but one choice, to answer. "Yes" I squeaked out as I started to calm down.

There was something about Joyce that comforts you wither it was her sweet honey mother's voice or her embracing mother's hugs. The way she allayed solved things like a mother and... waits. It hit me and I felt embarrassed by not noticing it sooner. Joyce reminded me of my own mother in every way and aspect of her life to my mothers. I didn't remember what my mother looked like or what her name was only that she lover me and that I loved her to. It was funny they way that I remembered all the things she did but not her appearance.

"Joyce." I spoke her name softly as my body relaxed. "Yes?" she replied and my trembles came to a halt. "Did you have children of your own?" I asked and she seemed shocked at first by the questioned and then she smiled a sweet soft upward pull of her lips. "Yes I had two beautiful girls" she did have children just as I suspected. "Two girls? What are they're names?" I asked closeting my eyes trying to imagine the beautiful little girls with their mothers golden waves of hair and her green eyes. "I can't remember." She shocked me with the replies. "You can't?" I asked overwhelmed a bit. "No I've been here so long that I have forgotten allot about my life in the other world." I could feel her cold tears on my cheek and I pushed her away to look at her face. "You haven't seen them for how long?" I asked in astonishment and a bit of sarcasm. "Over two hundred years it's been." She looked although she was gazing at something far away. "Okay" I sighed scrambling to my feet and she snapped out of it and back to reality. "I'll help you and I promise soon. Just let me get my revenge and then I'll be able to leave the castle." I pointed my finger up and winked at them playfully only because I knew my time here was about to end. "I promise." I giggled out the words and then collapsed onto the cold stony floor and all went black.

When I awoke I was on the hallway floor, and in a night gown that I surely didn't recognize. I stood using the wall as my crutch. I tried to shake off my shivers and my teeth charted slightly. I could see my breath come out in white puffs of hot air against the cold. I wrapped my arms around my chest and walked slowly around the turns and through the cold stony spaces. I had never seen these halls before I wonder where they lead. I touched the icy stone dragging my fingers as I walked along the carpeted floor. I came to a door made of stone worn out and chipped. I never guessed it would open but I shoved it aside and through to tithe next room I went. As I entered I felt the warm carpet disappear beneath my cold naked feet.

This was defiantly a place I had never seen before there were no lights and no candles only darkness that seemed to get darker I began to reach out my hands inform of me to feel for things. It was a while until I felt the cold stone torch my hands, and as I began to walk with it further and further a light very dim even so was coming into view. I could feel the cold start to disappear my breath was no longer visible and my feet no longer ached from the cold stone beneath them. Infect the ground beneath me felt like soft plushy carpet and not stone at all. In began to run towards the light that kept getting brighter and soon I had reached it stopping to see what it was my feet plashing into the soft warm carpet beneath them.

"A candle?" I asked aloud. I grabbed it quickly and hurried further down the hall. The funny thing about this hall had to be that this was the only candle for at least ten yards until I found one more. I left it in its place what good would it be to me anyway? I hurried on and I counted the candles as I passed them. One, two, three, four, five, I had gotten to eight by the time I reached what seemed like a door. It was wooden and had several locks that where not locked. I heard voices on the other side many of them unfamiliar. I recognized Paradine and priest Gifford's but no one else's. There where many including Gifford and Paradise's I must have heard twelve.

I crept in and found myself on a stairwell leading down to a room I had never seen before in my life. There was Paradine on the far right comer of the room and Gifford was right there next to him. They were all blathering about something I thought to be nonsense but I decided to listen closer. I peeked my head out a little to get a good look and then I heard it all. "What do you plan to do with them? There's no sense in keeping the poor things end there misery now." A man with short straight cut black hair suggested. "What good would that do? There demon might just enslave me I might as well find a cure so that it doesn't happen to me or my lovely Somia." My name stuck out like a sore thumb. "Nothing will happen you're just being super stickups." The black haired man continued. "Don't you notice anything funny about them all?" Gifford spoke on Paradine behalf.

"They will die if you keep them here" "no we have fed them and taken care of them ever since they came here." Paradine voice was reassuring. I peered a little further to get a look of what they where talking about and I gave a gasp there on the wall vicious and uncontrollable locked in chains Samantha, and Joyce. "Oh" I gasped out a little loud then I pulled myself back and clapped my hands over my mouth. "Did you hear something?" Paradine asked the other men. "No why?" Paradine gave no answer. I peered out little to get a sight of what was happening next. Paradine was making his way over to the stairs, giving them a curious look. "What are you donning?" Gifford asked. "checking." Was his replies. I hopped to my feet and slipped out the door. I dropped the candle and let it blow out. I ran fast down the hall not looking back not stopping to rest even for a second. Soon I felt the cold stone take place of the plushy carpet and the I was at the stone door. I pushed my way through it and hurried down the hall, my hot breath puffing clouds of white air.

I reached my bedroom door after taking a series of turns and twists that I had no idea of where they lead. I collapsed on the warm comfit or gasping for air a million things swirled inside of me so many emotions and so many questions. I quickly made a fire in the fire place and hopped in bed to warm myself.

Why was Paradine and priest Gifford talking to those men? Why were Samantha and Joyce there hanging by the blood red wall? What's going to happen to them? I asked myself so many questions I didn't know where to start I decided to take my mind off it all and stop the swirling confusion that was occupying my head. I clicked the lamp off and blew out the candles that lay on my enable. I let the darkness flood into the room and I felt the light of the full moon shining on my face. I closed my drooping eyes and felt the warm sensational dream state of sleep over come my body and I drifted into a sweet fantasy with Ian and me.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter seven Struggle

Chapter seven Struggle

I awoke fully rested and feeling refreshed, even though the sight I had seen wasn't a pleasant one I still managed to over come it all to get the full nights rest I needed. These ten sets of six where starting to worry me in more than one way. I kept wakening up in strange places wearing different clothes and I always find something new at the end of it all

I have to save Samantha and Joyce but it's not going to be easy with the Quiet on my back. _Is that what you really think? That I'm on your back?_ I jumped in sudden shock a rush that sent chills through my body. "n-no" I quickly answered back trying to fool the demon but I knew it would never work. I couldn't believe that I didn't notice it before but the Quiet could read my thoughts. Feeling a bit stupid about this notion I blushed a deep pooling red around my cheeks._ They are deceiving you._ The honey voice was alluring in so many ways.

_They are telling you lie._ The Quiet said. "If they're lies then why do they seem so true? I asked in suspicion. _They have power my sweet, they know how to put visions in ones head. Please tell me you don't believe them?_ How could I have been so foolish? Of course they were powerful, powerful enough to assume the identity of Samantha? "How powerful? Are they powerful enough to assume the identity of another being?" I had to ask it was a good question though I must emit. _Yes. They to have the power of the crystals that they have given you._ I felt a hot flash wave through me in sudden recall of the white envelope of crystals that they had given me to free they're bodies."Then why would they want me to use those crystals to save them?" I thought I caught the Quiet off guard and that there would be no answer. I was wrong.

_They are clawing into your dreams and manipulating them. They only want to be stronger and they need you to do it._ The Quiet's voice seemed to get angry and scratched again as it has been before._ They are leading you to believe that you are the only one possible to free them and that the crystal will kill the demon inside of them. There is no demon. They are using your subconscious mind as a weapon and tool to lure you in._ I could see the plan lay out on a time line, first get into my dreams then manipulate me by using the form of Samantha and Joyce. Next give me the crystals and instructions to supposable set them free, then send me off with good wishes to shove the crystals into there chests and let them grow in strength. It was possible, and it most certainly could be done.

_Those crystals will only increase they're powers and give them so much more strength then you have. They will kill you my dear, when they're through with you. Be certain of your choices for they are never safe._ I heard the Quiet and believed it. I was convinced that it was my subconscious mind and that it was helping me get what I wanted by shielding me from what might hurt me further. The group in the dreams was liars and so were my dreams. I could trust no one's voice unless it was the Quiets. There was no shape to any one around me.

_Now let me take over. I will give you all you ever wanted. Beautiful things and dazzling clothes, a perfect Christmas and most of all revenge._ The word seemed to roll of the Quiet's none existing tinge and flow through me granting me peace. I was here for that and that only now I had nothing and lived for one thing. The single most important event that was coming closer with every hour minute and second me breathed.

"wait." I blew out before the lullaby succored me. "I need to take care of some things first so let's just wait; you'll have your time soon enough as it is." I realized how much I really needed to see what Paradine really mint when he talked of my safety from the two. _ Very well but soon I'll have my time. _"Agreed" I whispered and then closed my lips ending the conversation.

I trotted like a tired hoarse to the closet and dressed in a gold floor length dress that had swirling designs. I twisted the knob of my door and pulled it open with a hiss from the icy cold metal. With a tired sigh I walked forward the way I had run from the previous night. If it really was a dream then would they still be there? Or would they be different maybe not chained to the golden walls of the study. Maybe they weren't the animal like beasts banging there head against the wall making the books fly to the floor. I hoped they were gone I hope that the Quiet was right about it all being a dream.

I walked just as I had before dragging my fingers against the wall feeling the warmth disappear under my feet as the carpet disappeared into the stone floor. I was walking as silently as I possibly could my feet sweeping across the floor with a hushed scurry, as my fingers silently felt the stone grooves along the now icy wall. I felt my fingers shiver and my feet ache as the concrete slapped silently against the soles of my feet. It was minutes and maybe even an hour until I reached the stone door than I had once pushed open. I did the same and I thrust my body at the stone, it cracked on its hinges and slowly opened slid through a small opening I had managed to get and went on to until I reached the candle that had been replaced and relit. I grabbed it anxiously and went on counting the candles until I reached the wooden door that led to the study I had seen Samantha and Joyce in the night before.

So far every thing in my dream was real; down to every candle stick evenly space ten yards away from each. I opened the study that had not been locked since the night before and walked slowly down the concrete stairwell. Nobody was there. Not even chains on the golden wall, no books on the floor and not chipped paint where the two had banged there heads violently against the wall.

"What?" I asked in disbelief but the Quiet didn't answer. I crunched my eyebrows and walked to the wall witch I had seen them the night before. I felt the wall and pulled every book from the bookcase. I lifted the rug and checked every statue. Nothing.

I heard faint foot steps getting closer as I searched for the passage. I rushed rebooking everything I had before every crack in the wall down to every book on the shelves. Nothing. Paradise's voice came from the other side of the door loud and clear. He was locking and unlocking the locks and I giggled with the thought of what good will that does you? Soon my giggles were silenced by the rumbling of the walls as they began to turn and I felt a bit dumb for not looking over the locks and for not wondering why they weren't locked. I dug my fists into the wall as support to be dragged onto the other side. My legs fell behind swinging over my head as the wall flipped upside down. My feet slammed to the floor my fists still gripping the wall. I pulled them out and slowly rose to my feet, rubbing my hurt back. I had slammed to the gray stone floor so hard here it was rather dangerous to be clinging to those walls.

I finally straightened up my back giving cracks as it snapped back into place. I gasped feeling the bones shift in my body then let my eyes wonder on the sight behind the wall. It was not the dungeon seen I had pictured earlier, but much different. There were black lab tables, with vales, beakers, and papers covering every square inch of the surface and the stone I had slammed into on my ohm so graceful entrance didn't go far. About five feet in front of me there was an ending to the gray worn down stone and a beginning to a gray blue plush carpet that had many stains, burns and holes from research gone wrong.

I gasped as I looked at the gold wall to the right of me. There they were all of them. Joyce and Samantha and all the others from the Quiets dream state. Snarls ripped through there lips and their arms and legs struggled to be free but the metal was to strong for their weekend bodies. The caught sight of me and cringed away closeting their mouths shut tight and balling up they're fists. "All in one place then." I sighed reaching into my pocket for the envelope, but it wasn't there. My eyes grew wide and I reached into the other pocket. Nothing. "Where are they?" I gasped out in panic. "How am I supposed to save these people if I don't have the crystals?" I began to blabber. "What am I going to do? I don't have the lock keys what if I never find the crystals?" It all hit me like a ton of bricks.

I looked around panicking my heart pounding, "what if I lost them? Oh no!" I backed up against the gold wall I had flipped over from and slid down the wall to the ground. All went quiet as I sobbed a few oh no's and what am I going to do's. I let my head droop and that's when I heard it, from the other side I could hear the conversation the men where having.

"Your queen is missing?" an unfamiliar voice asked in a questionable tone. "Yes she hasn't been seen since yesterday, and we also had an intruder last night as well." Paradise's voice came through clear as a bell. "I don't understand who would be strong enough to take her on?" I could picture him shaking his head in disapproval. "I don't know but we must find out." The unfamiliar voice spoke again. "Yes, I want her back before Christmas." I heard anger rise in his voice. "Where are we to start looking then?" the voice asked him and I knew he had already thought it out. "The room where all her old things are." He said optimistic. "Then if she's not there fan out and search the least likely places first." It was a good plan until now. They were never going to find me for I was here on the other side of the wall, and he had no clue that I could hear ever word they spoke.

"Search everywhere and leave no space unchecked." "Yes sir" I heard a rustling and bumping like many people trying to run up the stairs all at once and then it was quiet. I sat still for awhile to make sure there was no trick to this and after about five minutes not a sound had been made. I stood up and looked around. I broke the glass of a case that held a short frilly black white and red blouse and skirt. I quickly changed into it tying the necktie a bit crooked but still right. I shoved the dress in its place and closed the broken glass door, and patted the skirt fluffing off dust. I walked to the wall and slammed my fist through to the other side, closing my eyes as dust spurted out of the cement wall.

All I could think was cheapskate putting cheep paint and concrete together but I can understand why. After all know one was to know about this room so spending must have been low. I can't imagine who little it must have cost for furniture and paint, but for the wall gears and lab tool must have been expensive.

I shoved my other fist into the wall and pulled both fists towards me, gripping the wall. Soon a hole came out like and misshaped circle. I climbed to the other side and jolted up the stair well. I reached for the handle and tugged and the door but it wouldn't budge. "Locked?" I asked aloud. "Oh hell." I sighed out and pushed the door into the wall on the other side. "He can replace it." I sneered sarcastically as I ran down the candle lit hallway and reaching the stone door in a matter of seconds. I pushed it open and continued on.

The further down the hallway I walked the warmer it got and the more the darkness faded away. I came to the long rectangle window that sat next to my room door, the sunlight of the new day spilled into the room and onto the floor. I felt the warmth as I passed by and glanced out the window toward the glistening snow. Christmas was tomorrow and I had no intention of spending it with Paradine.

I passed my room knowing that if I took to much time I would never get my revenge. I had to hurry before the Quiet ruined everything all that I had planned I needed to end this charade now. I ran swiftly down the hall, not stopping for anything not even to breathe. The only sound was that of my feet hitting the floor each time I pounded further down the hall. My heart began beat faster and I could feel it hurt once again, but I didn't understand why this time. Nothing had hurt me and I have not thought of. You know. Maybe it was because I was so close to what I had been wanting for over a month now. Maybe my heart felt as heavy as it did because I was so close to taking him the one who killed him.

As the pain pierced my throbbing heart I flung open the grand hall doors and flew up to my thrown. Paradine's eyes grew wide as he looked me over. I climbed to the top of my colossal chair and put my hands on my hips. "Out" I said eyeing every face in the room. "Leave now all of you." I ordered and they gave Paradine a look of confusion. He only knotted his head and waved a limp hand for them to leave. They all sighed and let they're heads fall as they slummed to the door. I waited till everyone was gone even the guards. "Why haven't you told me about them?" I growled slapping him across the face. "About who?" have asked putting a hand to his sore cheek. "The possessed vampires! Why haven't you told me about them?" I was ferocious now snarls ripping out of my chest. "How did you find out?" he glared into my eyes and I knew I couldn't tell him I had a demon of my own. "A friend of mine was kind enough to lead me to your secret room." I snarled pushing him away. "That uniform it's from the lab!" he growled at me his furious anger suddenly came out. "You a fool you couldn't even smell my scent." I mocked him with a crooked smile on my face. "You call yourself a vampire? Anyone with brains could tell I had been there." I let my smile grow. "Brains? You of all people should know that with all the vampires I had in the room I wouldn't be able to tell witch scent was yours or their's" he complained and probably thought he got me. No he didn't. I had thought of that and even I can tell apart different scents.

He looked up at me with sad eyes and I only knew what he could be thinking. "Why didn't you tell me about this?" I asked lowering my voice a bit. His eyes mesmerized with sadness and guilt he looked down and away then back to me again his eyes now watery. I felt bad, after I had seen the specks of salty tears. "I wanted to protect you." I heard no crack or sadness in his voice. Nothing to tell me that he truly was sad. His watering eyes still had not spilled over onto his glowing cheeks. He was trying to make himself cry was all I could think. Or trying to stop his eyes from steaming out salty rivers. "Oh get up you fake coward!" I growled at him pulling him to his feet by his shirt collar.

I reached inside the military jacket of the lab uniform I was wearing and pulled out a black icy cold knife. "Well are you going to fake being scared or tell me what you where doing with them?" I said with a smile and a bit of sarcasm added to my voice. He looked at me eyes wide like a bugs, as I flipped the knife in my hand. He began to chuckle and then roared out laughs shaking as he put his hand over his forehead. "Do you really think a knife will hurt one of us?" He began to settle down and I kept my smile perfect. "It's a secret." I said through my upright lips. "The way this knife works." I said my smile felt like it had grown. "A secret?" he sneered sarcastically. "yes." I smiled twisting the knife in my hands and looking only at it. "It was an experiment my sister and I took place in." I pause for a moment smiling knowing only to myself that purebloods were safe from the blade. "We were the only pure bloods among many level two vampires." His eyes once again filled with the sense of being scared only this time I believed the feeling in his eyes was true. "It cut with out the slightest bit of tension." I smiled again to myself. I began tossing the knife in my hand as I recalled the memory of my sister, my beloved sister of whom I may never see again.

I closed my eyes as I tossed the knife once more, but I didn't feel the cold metal hit my hand when it should have come back down. I opened my eyes and there stood Paradine with my knife. "What are you going to do with that thing?" I asked with a slight giggle. "I'm going to test it." He snarled putting the knife to his arm. "Will it cut?" he said with sudden suspense. "Yes it will." I felt the kneed to add that in.

He pressed the tip of the knife to his pale skin and dragged it back about an inch. I only smile as one bed of blood rolled down his arm. "Yes it will." I repeated triumphantly. He sneered at me and trusted the knife to my chest. The knife broke like glass hitting a rock and the shatter pieces sprinkled the floor. "What?" Paradine's eyes grew wider than a deer stuck in headlights. "Well isn't that interesting?" I smiled gleefully. "But... it cut me!" he spurted out the words checking his arm. He felt the warm liquid and nearly fainted. "The knife doesn't work on pure bloods, Paradine." I smiled as he seemed to get nauseous. His eyes began to drop and he held his stomach with both hands. "Did I mention the affects?" I asked putting a hand over my lips and cringing away from the sight. "Once you've been cut you get very sick, I mean violently ill. The only worse part is the sickness doesn't end until you heal, and that will take days for even that little cut there." I winced as he heaved in pain.

"Please don't throw up!" I screamed a bit loud as let my knees fall to the ground. I put my hands over my ears so that I wouldn't hear the gagging sounds he made. My stomach was always uneasy when it came to vomiting, and I couldn't stand the sight of it just as much as the sound. I held my position until I thought his gagging stopped. I took my hands slightly from my ears and shot them back up again when I heard him gag once more. Oh please make it stop, is the only thing going through my head as I sit here hunched over hands over my ears and eyes tightly shut.

He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed tightly, like he was trying to pull himself up. I felt a tugging on my arm now as if top pry it of my ear, I wouldn't let it happen. I fell rolling on my back and hunched into a ball on the floor as if a bomb was to explode at any moment now.

I heard a mumbling sound I guessed it was from Paradine. I opened my eyes to get a look at what was happening at the moment. Paradine was there lying on the floor facing away from me holding his stomach and gagging violently. I closed my eyes quickly and tightly to block out any image. I felt my body tremble and my hands shaking on my ears. My mind began to fog as I lapsed into a stage of fright. It was my worst fear. People had there fear of blood and of spiders well mine was of vomited the grosses of all bodily functions. I felt my mind turn upside down as my stomach became nautilus. I was quivering with my mind locking itself away.

_I'll take care of you._ I heard the quiet speak for the first time in a very long time or so it seemed._ I'll take very good care of you._ It was in the honey sweet voice that had always put a mother's face in my head. The Quiet had pulled my head enough out of the fog it was in to let me speak. "No you won't." The words came out in a struggle._ You need to relax allow me to take over for a while._ The voice was alluring but I had to fight it I just knew I would wake up with no memory of what I had done just like the times before. "No I can do this on my own; I don't want your help!" I grabbed my ears tightly as if to hush the voice but nothing could do that, the demon was inside my head. _You may not want my help but you certainly need it._ The Quiet was right about that tiny detail though I still had no intention of giving in to it. The only question was could I with stand the seductive pull my body was feeling?

"No I don't." I denied the obvious with my words. I opened my eyes seeing Paradine cringing in pain with his curious eyes focused on me. The insane or soon to be, or so he must have thought.

_Yes, _the Quiet urged and I still felt some fight left inside of me. "No" I kept repeating and my voice seemed to slowly fade away. The world around me had gone entirely blank, and the cold crept in on my body. I could hear the lullaby and the feeling of sleep arousing me. I fought to open my eyes as they drooped; the feeling became so intense I could hardly think. I soon realized I wasn't going to get far with the Quiet, what ever it was, was more powerful than I am.

I let my eyes close and the sleep sub come me as I drifted into the dream world I knew. It was all as it was before the sand the sirens and the monsters. I ran to the patch of sand that didn't disappear into the darkness when the sirens started. I didn't see Samantha coming or anyone else so I let the sand take me down swift fully. The moment I looked around in the sanctuary, every ones curious eyes where on me. "What?" I asked a bit snooty. "You have found our bodies?" Joyce saw right through me. "Yes" I replied honestly, knowing she could see the truth if I spoke it. "Why haven't you freed us?" she asked with a little curiously. "I don't know why your there." Was all I could think to say? If she knew I was giving in to the Quiet so easily she would be hurt and angry. "Why we're there, like as in what we where doing there or why has someone brought us there?" Samantha spoke confused. "Yes" I said and she tipped her head to the side. "Why did Paradine bring you there?" I finally spoke up.

"Paradine has our bodies? The creep you married for revenge?" she asked a little angry now. "Yes but I am planning to kill him on the up side." I said those words with sarcasm. "The up side? There is no up side to this!" women in the back with dark curly hair spoke up in fury. "Here we are deprived of our families and other world and you simply say it's on the up side!" Joyce shushed her as I co warded a bit. "That's not what I meant." I spoke the truth I only meant that parodies death would bring there freedom b at that point didn't get across to well.

"Why haven't you freed us? We miss the other world more than anything. Let us have our life's back." Another woman pleaded and I began to feel guilt spread across my face. "It's not that simple you know! I can't just get to your bodies that easy! There's no way to tell if it's safe or not to free you. I found information about this okay? If I free you threes a chance someone else will get caught in the demons trap or whatever it is that posses you! Do you get it now?" After I practically yelled the words at them they retreated on the argument and I felt that I had won.

"Don't get so mad about all this I tried." I wanted to look innocent. "Obviously not hard enough." The woman in the back spoke. "Yes I must agree." Joyce surprised me when she said that. I gave her a look I had never given before and I wasn't sure how to describe it other than faking the innocence. "We were counting on you Somia. We have every right to be mad; you gave us your word and broke it." Samantha spoke now in an emotion less voice that I didn't recognize. I was being ridiculed stupid lying to all of these people who saw the truth under their noses. "Why didn't you tell us that the demon was so seductive to you? We could have helped." Joyce pleaded for an answer and I groped for words. There wasn't any excuse and I knew I would fall for my actions. "You don't know what it's like, wakening up in an unfamiliar place not knowing what you had done. Then the demon in that honey tone telling you it's going to be okay and that it wants to help you. Knowing that your belief in every word that the demon is telling you is really a cocoon of lies made by this thing that wants your body." I didn't think before I spoke I just burst out in words that I felt shooting out at every one who was trying to help me. "this demon that is so alluring so seductive you keep wanting more until it takes you completely, and there's nothing you can do about it because your helpless here in this strange world where sirens go off and monsters come." I was about to start again after a long breathe then Joyce put her hand over my mouth and I began to sob. What was happening to me? I couldn't think for myself and I felt the weight of sorrow crushing down on me. Was there anything I could do right?

"Hush, just hush now and let us talk." Joyce said as she gave Samantha a look of worry. "It's only natural to think the whole world is out to get you, but you have to see it from a different view." She began as she walked over to a stone box on the other side of the room. "We have that other view and here is the only place you can see it." She continued while she opened the sand lid and pulled out an orb with something pearly glazed over its sleek surface. "we never know what we're going to see but sometimes its good and other times we never want to look again." I felt tears dripping into the hair on the top of my head as Joyce nodded. "We all have seen things but only Joyce wishes to let things go." I looked up at the beauty with tears rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes closed and face blank, as if trying not to recall her last view.

"We all have hopes but most are crushed when we see the truth behind it all." She handed the orb to me and I wrapped my hands around it to secure it safely. "When you look you will see the outside world for the first time when here in the belly of the beast." She backed away and I gave thought to whether I was going to gaze upon the orb for a window to the other world or if I choose not to see what was happening in place of me.

It was a quick decision and made mostly of curiosity, but I looked into the shiny pearly surface of the orb, and felt the whole world around me disappear. I sat there in the darkness that had become my world and waited. It took not thirty seconds before an image came to me. It felt like a movie where all you could do was watch, the wall less space before me seemed to become a screen of the present outside of here. I saw the grand hall, and the extremely large Christmas tree. The image shifted as did I and I saw Paradine's unconscious body lying on the blood red carpet. He didn't move not even breathe, and where he lay the carpet seemed redder than before. I heard a mumbling of voices and the image shifted again. I saw Leah, my only sister. I stood immediately and watched in such profound focus that I felt pain in my eyes. She was charging toward me fists all bladed up and angry creases formed in her skin. My eyes widened and I ran to the image, only to fall through it like there had never been anything there. I stumbled to the ground on the other side and looked up at the image. Leah's fist was coming toward my bodies face and faster than you can imagine.

The world I was in crashed as the bodies I watched from fell to the ground. "Show me the fight." I yelled up to the darkness, and the image did nothing. "Show me!" I begged and then the image disappeared. I fell to my knees and the darkness disappeared, and I was in Joyce's arms again like I had been before I saw the vision.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter eight stuck

Chapter eight stuck

It had been more than six hours, since my sleep began and I still was in the dream world. I walked with Samantha along a river I had never seen before in this world and she was chatting away. Every time she saw a fish she would toss in a string with a self made hook and a worm attached to it. I was holding a net with about four or five fish all that she had caught.

"Samantha, why haven't I gone back yet? The alarms have gone off, so doesn't that mean I should have gone back?" I was curious about my situation as anyone would be. "I think it means you're stuck here. It happened to all of us at some point and soon as the sirens went off and w never returned, well here we are stuck." She fiddled with a leaf as she waited for a bite on her makeshift fishing line. "So then I'm stuck." I said to myself but she didn't seem to notice. "Yeah, you get use to it in all but stuck is stuck no matter who you are." She jumped a little when the line tugged on her finger that she had tied it to. "It's okay as long as you stay near a patch of sand or something that gets you to the safe place." She said as she pulled a green backed fish out of the water. "That's a good catch." She mummer to herself as she unhooked it and dropped it into the net. "Soon we'll have enough for all of us." We began walking down the stream again and soon we crossed to the other side, so we could walk back up the stream and stay close to the patch. "What are the others doing?" I asked out of boredom. "Mom... depends; I mean usually Joyce gathers mushrooms and edible plants to cook. Some of the other women look for plants that we can use as spices for flavor and the men usually hunt birds or anything they can find with meat on it." She explained the way it worked with the little tribe.

"Since your here I can catch more fish, since your the one carrying the net." I guessed she uses to have to carry it herself but I didn't ask. I was a bit exhausted from the vision I had earlier that day and I felt like sitting on a couch somewhere and doing absolutely nothing. Samantha dropped another fish in my net and I felt the weight get heavier. "That one might feed two." She laughed a bit and tossed the line back in the stream.

"Threes not much I can do here but we try to entertain ourselves." She gazed at her reflection in the water. "I mean if we see signs of hope, the next thing you know every one is preparing to confront the new world. As soon as we think it's time it happened, and we're still stuck in this place." She seemed content with herself at that moment and I felt a bit guilty. If I hadn't let the demon take me so easily there would still be hope. "sorry." I said looking at the fish in the crystal water. "Don't be, we all just used the excuse pure blood to get our hopes up I mean the demon was seductive to all of us and none of us could do it." The line tugged again and she pulled out another fish. "You used me being a pure blood as an excuse?" I asked a little confused. "Yes more for ourselves than you. What I mean is we thought since in the real world you're stronger than us that you would be able to set us free. To be honest we weren't sure if the crystals would even work." She was being honest but it made me a little angry to know that they didn't even have the information straight.

We sat in silence for a while as she kept wheeling in the fish and I kept dragging along the net. Soon it got too heavy for me to lift on my own so we both carried it back to the patch and waited for the sirens to go off.

"Have you ever not made it to the sand in time?" I asked her curiously wondering if and how she survived. "Yes, only once though. I heard that there was lots of food in a valley pretty far away. I didn't make it in time and spent the whole six hours hiding." She seemed sad when I had asked this, but she gave a clear answer I didn't expect. "well you never know how long you'll have before they go off, it may even be two minutes then you come rushing back to the patch." She laughed a bit and then stood up straight. "But when it comes you relieve threes a sudden heaviness in the air and you'll know to get you tail back here." She had a serious tone and the sirens went off. I felt the heaviness in the air that she had described, and next thing I know is that we're sinking in the sand and roping to the safe room.

"I see you caught enough for us all Samantha." Joyce smiled in our direction. "It wasn't just me Somia held the net other wise I would have lost like ten fish!" she gave me some unneeded credit. "Lets fry them up good; I hope someone found some spices." She was enthusiastic. I guessed that she didn't often bring back as much fish as she did when I held the net. "Yes I found some, a little rosemary and a few other herbs." Joyce smile and a few other people dropped from the sand above us. "Has any one else found any spices?" Joyce asked kindly. "Yes I found some for a seasoning." Women with dark brown hair replied and brag forth a bundle of plants she held in her old tattered dress.

Samantha smiled wide from ear to ear, as if she were a little kid. I noticed all these different things in Samantha; she was like a kid but could be too serious at times. She was certainly one of a kind.

"Alright lets make a fire in the pit and grill them with some marinade!" she jumped and squealed as if this were a rare treat for her. "Hold on a minute we have to wait for the others and see what they brought we could throw together a nice meal for every one if we get some vegetables water and other herbs." She was right as usual. Joyce looked up at the sand, as a man and a woman slid out. "We found mushrooms, of two kinds." The sighed as they came over both with a makeshift basket filled with two kinds of mushrooms. "We were hoping for the usual four kinds but they were all withered or dead." They each made faces at each other. I hadn't realized how much these people worked together to supplier the remaining with food.

"Is every one here?" Joyce asked in an excited voice. Some looked for him and others looked at their feet. "He didn't make it." The woman with the dark brown hair spoke up after a brief period of silence. "Well the sand passage is still open we'll wait a bit longer." She smiled and began to cut mushrooms with a sharp thin rock. "No, that's not quiet it." She spoke again, and Joyce looked up to her slowly. "He isn't coming, not ever." She Sea deadly as tears welled up in her eyes. "He fell." She sniffed trying to hold back her sobs. "He saw a nest of eggs on a steep cliff, the northern valley cliff." She put her hands to her lips to stop them from trembling. "he." She paused. "fell." Then she finished.

Joyce looked at her hard for a minute, then looked down and kept cutting the mushrooms in silence. We all sat in silence as we grilled the fish in a watery herb marinade, and then fried the chopped mushrooms in what was left of the rosemary and water. A short man had found a cow stable further east then we had gone before. He said there was a patch there also and he retrieved three pitchers of milk.

Samantha and I sat at the fire pit, grilling the fish in the marinade. Not one of us spoke a word for what seemed like twenty minutes. Even then the only word or sentence was where the rosemary is. I decided it was time to talk to Joyce, but I had no clue how to break the silence. I pushed my hands to the stone floor and lifted myself to my feet. "What are you doing?" Samantha whispered in a bit of an alarming tone. "Ending this iridous silence!" I whispered back.

I walked over to where Joyce was kneeling on the floor with a block of wood as a cutting board on her lap and a sharp flat rock in her right hand. I sat beside her and looked at the motion or her hands as she cut mushrooms in to threes. "We can't keep mourning like this Joyce it's not healthy for the mind." I finally spoke biting down hard on my lip. I tried to remember to keep my voice to a low whispered hush. "Yes, I know this but he meant so much to all of us." She was so soft spoken, even more than usual. "Many have died before him and it has not been this pressed on the group to go into silence for so long." She continued after wiping the mushroom stumps into a basket. "He did many things for us, and that is why we respect him so." She sighed and was about to begin again but I interrupted. "I have an idea! I said in an exited whisper. "We will dedicate this dinner to him!" I said enthusiastically. "Do you guys know what day it is?" I asked hopefully. She nodded, "Samantha makes us calendars so we all can keep track of the time." She smiled a bit. "You can't imagine how old I am." She laughed a little. "I think it's a splendid idea we'll mark this day on the calendar and celebrate it every year like thanksgiving, ok?" she made a promise to me when I was to make a promise to her.

When we all finished cooking, and preparing our little set up of a dinner on the ground we all sat on the stones and smiled to one another. We had wooden plate's forks knife and cups, without any napkins. The fish were neatly stacked on a wooden platter in front of Joyce, and the mushrooms were equally divided amongst every one already on their plates. "Every one, before we start Somia and I have an announcement about today." She smiled and gestured for me to say the rest. I cleared my throat smiled and began. "As you all know, old man Throe died in an accident today. My mouth twisted around the sentence. "So in honor of his tribute to all of us for helping us all we are dedicating today to him and every time of the year around this day we will have the same dinner of fish and mushrooms. Kind of like Thanksgiving." I laughed at the last part and every one smiled wide. I raised my wooden cup and every one followed on example. "To Throe." Joyce declared, and we all drank the milk from our cups.

We all enjoyed the meal, complementing Joyce and the couple who found them; I was also introduced to them. Bernadette and Michel. Turns out there not a couple after all and I find Michel to be attractive. I shunned myself away from the though knowing that no one could ever replace Ian. Many in the group complemented Samantha and I for the fish and Isabel for the herbs that we cooked them in. every one was grateful and this made me feel like I had found my home.

Soon the six hours of us all eating and enjoying conversation were up and we all found ourselves collecting more food. Of course Samantha and I went fishing, I mean who else could get as many fish? We sat there on the banks, and this time we stayed in one place. "My stomached is so full I can barely move" Samantha said smiling. "I don't remember the last time I was this full." She pulled on the line and put our third fish in the net. "Hey I have to ask you something." I spoke up. I had a dwindling though of Michel on my mind. "What yaw need?" She asked back. "About Michel." I began to say. "Woof do you have a crush? What about the no one will ever replace Ian, thing?" she impersonated me with a stern face. "Yeah well" I paused taking a breathe, "I need to get on with my life and let the past be the past." I said putting my chin between my bald up fists like I was the thinker or something. "Him, well don't tell Michel I told you this but he seems to like you too, but you've never noticed him!" she laughed and the line tugged. "Well I was being horrible possessed by a demon that is doing God knows what now." She giggled and put the fourth fish in the net.

"Well when I was introduced to him the other day I felt something I haven't felt since Ian." I quickly stopped after I said his name not relishing that I'd said it. "It's time you found some one new right?" she asked pulling me out of my sudden spiral of thoughts. "Can you find more than one someone?" I was curious about this situation. "Yes I call it the Jack pot." She laughed again as she pulled out the faith fish and let it drop into the net.

"Well if you really feel something for him you need to find out what that something is." She spoke with a bit of nobility they I found corny. "Well I want to see him and I can't get him out of my mind. What kind of feeling is that?" she put her finger to her chin "I think its lust or love lust." She said as if she was thinking. I never really realized how bubbly Samantha was until now; I guess I just didn't notice. "Well if you like him as much as you say why don't you to go to the pond." "The pond?" I asked in disbelief. "Yeah the pond, it's a place that is always a sanctuary." She sounded strained as she hoisted up a rather large fish from the stream. "Michel spends allot of time there you might want to go look for him, I mean we have like five hours left." She wasn't being sarcastic even though that's the way her voice turned.

"Just follow this stream up to the north and you'll find a bridge with fog and stuff, cross it he'll be on the other side trust me." She pointed up the way we had come and I sighed as I lifted myself to my feet. "Alright" I muttered under my breathe. I started forward on my right foot, and fast walked up the stream side trail. What if he doesn't feel the same, and what if he's not at the pond like Samantha said was all I though as I walked the swiveling stream side trail.

It wasn't long before I came to a fog that only seemed to get thicker as I walked further up the trail. I swear it was so thick you could cut it with a butter knife. I had to reach my hands out to grope around until I hit what felt like a wooden banister. I clung to it for a minute resting my eyes. I had been straining them trying to see through the fog, but it didn't do anything but make my eyes hurt and burn. I thought for a minute listening to the sound of the foggy trail. I swear I herd something like dirt crunching under feet. I felt the presence of someone there, but it didn't scare me, it felt safe and secure like nothing I had ever felt before.

"Is someone there?" I asked blindly. If I still had my pure blood power I could see better in this fog. "Somia?" I heard a voice call back as I inched on what felt like a bridge. I was sure it was a bridge when my feet clunked against the wood. I shushed them not sure of who was on the other side. I was hot and sweating insanely from the fog that felt very much like steam. I thought of Michel being on the other side as I inched my hands over the wood banister. "Michel?" I asked through the mist, as I inched forward a foot or so. I felt an end to the banister I was cloning to and soon the crunch of dirt beneath my feet was there. "Michel?" I asked again my words a silvery sound against the fog. "Somia, can you see me?" I heard a voice calling from the fog. "No" I replied stumbling blindly a few feet in front of me. I thought following the sound of his voice, but that only made matters worse as I stumbled into the pond water. "Oh!" I gasped as I felt the cold liquid around my ankles. I bent down to wave my hands in the water, and sure enough it was that clear cold liquid I could barely see through the fog.

Suddenly a tan hand was on mine, making my skin seems to glow against his. He was truly a marvel among vampires, one of the few with UN healthy white skin. I looked up into the fog and his face emerged, knocking the breathe out of me as I took in all the sights of his rarity. His chocolaty brown short hair tinge gray in the fog and his deep never ending eyes. Michel was the kind of guy that had the most unique look but in the best way possible.

"Swimming is we?" he said sarcastically showing a crooked playful smile that could melt any girl's heart. "No, I was fishing." I replied my sarcasm back. He only smiled wider and in one swift movement rapped his arm around my waist and pulled me from the pond. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. "Don't fall in this time." His breathe hot against my ear and I could smell the sweet scent it gave off. It wasn't like ions scent not even close. Ions scent may have sent chills down my spine in a pleasurable way but Michel's knocked me off my feet. I can't explain it really a sweet stickiness with a bitter pinch at the end. Like honey flowers and roses with a very tiny hint of sugar and lemon.

It was seductive, making my head spin. Michel had to keep his arm wrapped tightly around my waist to support me as I walked with him down the path. My feet made muddy prints in the dirt as well as pulled the dirt along with them. We sat on a tree log that smelled of oak, and I looked down at my dirty feet sighing in disgust.

He chuckled a little then pulled his pant legs up and stepped into the pond just inches from the log I sat on. "Don't worry" he said still laughing a bit. He grabbed my right foot and began to rinse it with the cool crisp pond water. The water sent chills up my leg; I didn't mind them I kept my eyes on him as he gently washed the dirt specks from my pale foot. His touch was smooth and caressing as he wiped away the last speck of mud into the water. "Don't get them dirty again or else." He spoke humor sly as he switched from my right to my left foot. "Or else?" I urged him on just to hear his husky sweet voice. "Or else I'd have to wash them again" he laughed looking down at my almost clean left foot.

As I watched his hands working away the mud I got a sudden burst of curiosity, "doesn't it bother you?" I asked him and he looked up confusion filling his eyes. "Washing your feet?" he asked a bit humorously. "No, what I meant was does it bother you that I feel for Ian as well?" he smiled and I noticed a twinge of jealousy in his voice as he spoke. "No not really, he is no longer here and all I need to know is that you feel for me as much as you did for him." He looked up at me after placing my left foot onto the log. "I think" I spoke as he sat next to me on the log. "That I feel more for you than I ever did for Ian." I said feeling the blood pool up in my cheeks. He reached up touching my cheek with his fingers. "That's all I need to know." He breathed and I felt dizzy, but I managed to keep my eyes open.

We stared into each others eyes for a moment like something out of a movie then I hugged his chest, burying my face in his shirt. It was ripped torn and dirty but it smelled just like him.

"You're eager." He laughed a bit. I breathed in deep and closed my eyes tightly, trying to remember this scent if at all possible.

I felt a sudden surge of pain tingling my temples and I flinched back in pain. I could feel my eyes uncontrollable rolling back, and my heart shuttered. I was shaking violently uncontrollably. "Somia?" I heard Michel's voice urgent and pained as my bodies fell limp to the ground. Flashes of something began playing in my mind like a movie. The flashes began to stop and the picture became clearer. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. My mind confused, and dizzy. My body began to shake less as the picture showed more detail and pigment.

I couldn't hear much, only the faint sound of crying, and all that was there was the pond. My body was limp and out of my control as it made its way into the pond, stopping when the water was about to my waist and the turning to face a large rock bulging out of the water. My eyes focused on a little girl laying limply half on the rock with her bottom torso and feet smiting still in the water. Her golden brown hair was wet like it was stuck to the rock, and her skin paler than that of mine. Her body trembled and shook as she turned to face me, her hair covering her face.

She sat there still and crying. My body walked stiffly towards her and paused on the side of the rock. I saw my hand appear as it picked away her golden brown locks. They fell from her face and into the water curling in slight spirals. She was a fair child with deathly ill features. Her face corpse pale and the soaking wet white cotton gown cling to her skinny ribbed body. Her eyes were closed tightly as if she was scared of seeing a muster, and she whimpered nonsense about help and home.

"Its okay doing be afraid." My mouth told her sweetly and she opened her eyes slowly and groggy like she had just woken from sleep. I gasped looking into her crimson eyes glowing darkly against the innocent looking pond. "Help" she croaked out in a weak and frail voice. She sounded weak as if she hadn't eaten in days. I stared into her eyes as mine began to shed salty tears, cold and wet flowing down my cheeks. Her eyes seemed to change in front of mine. They grew less and less vibrant red and more of a chocolaty brown. I realized I was laying on the cold stone floor of the sanctuary shaking a bit, staring directly into Michel's eyes.

I made myself sit up, a little fast form my mind as I felt a rush make me dizzy. I wiped my eyes and stared at the tears that lay smeared onto my palm. They were slivery white glowing, and my body was cold stiff lifeless as if though I was a newly born vampire.

"Are you all right?" I heard an unfamiliar voice ask me from my right. "Ohm" I looked over to see who had spoken the strange voice that rang in my ears.

My eyes stopped upon a young girl with a white cotton night gown and golden brown hair.


End file.
